Hey everyone,
I actually don't have much to report on this week. My parents have been in town for the past week and a half so when I am not in the office or lab working I am entertaining them during the evenings and weekends. We only just got back from Niagara on the lake where we spend two nights at a BnB and went wine, beer, and rye tasting. In terms of work, I have been continuing to revise for my qualifying exams although when my parents leave London this Friday I will be able to commit a lot more time revising. I spent the entire day last Thursday on the electron micro-probe looking at my West Clearwater polished thin sections and some of Dr Gordon Osinski's 2015 Mistastin polished thin section samples. I have one too many images to put on this blog unfortunately so I can show everyone the backscattered electron (BSE) analysis images on a powerpoint presentation. I have shown a BSE image of a clast-rich fine grained melt rock from West Clearwater below just to give everyone an idea of what I was observing on the electron micro-probe.
The image shows the BSE composition image of a clast-rich fine grained melt rock from West Clearwater. A crystalline (aphanitic, very fine grained) impact melt encasing a medium-coarse grained clast from the target rocks. Dark minerals are plagioclase and quartz crystals. Bright white crystals are magnetite and titanian magnetite. Light grey minerals are clinopyroxene, amphibole, and apatite. Black voids are vesicles.
Not really anything else to say. Oh, I now know roughly when my qualifying examination is going to be held. At the moment, the 20th of November at 9:30 am is the date and time! I am just waiting on time confirmation from Dr Richard Grieve and then I can inform the Earth Science Department that my committee and I have agreed on a date. After that well........I just have to bury myself in textbooks and journals when I am not on outreach and committee duties.
On a side note, if anyone wants to listen to a podcast I will be co-hosting it will be available on the 16th of October. It is my first time hosting so I am little bit nervous but very excited!
See you all next time!