Microscopic  Meteorite Pictures  by Tom Phillips

This beautiful Lodranite was brought to us by Gary Fujihara of Big Kahuna Meteorites.

Here are some photos of the whole stone.

This is a link to his site where he has some slices for sale. http://bigkahuna-meteorites.com/NWA6075.html



To be honest, I didn't know what to expect with a Lodranite. As it turned out, the traditional transmitted cross polarized light images were cool but the high magnification incident (Reflected) light shots were spectacular.

I will start with a set of combined incident and transmitted cross polarized light micrographs taken on an aus Jena Fluoval with a field of view of 0.40 mm. This technique shows off the colors of traditional Xpol while exposing the details of opaque material.

 

This is where I started falling in love with this material. Incident (Reflected) partially cross polarized light. This technique is largely "True Color". Some color is picked up in the highly translucent material and there is some opal looking effect but mostly this is what the material looks like way up close.

This set is at a magnification of 700X and it was taken on an aus Jena Neophot 21

Once again this set of micrographs was taken on an aus Jena Neophot 21 but it is at a magnification of 1600X. A technique known as oil immersion was used to achieve such a high magnification.

These metal flecks would look like little shiny spots in a hand sample. Notice all that is going on in a simple metal fleck!

 

Tom Phillips can be reached by email at:
STARSANDSCOPES@aol.com

The Tom Phillips Microscopic Meteorite Photography and Gallery