Man made?

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75RR
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Man made?

#1 Post by 75RR » Thu Jun 13, 2019 4:21 pm

Found this in a freshwater sample. Holes are 12µm diameter
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PeteM
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Re: Man made?

#2 Post by PeteM » Thu Jun 13, 2019 5:15 pm

Sure looks like it. Perhaps part of a filter (oil, air, water, . . .) ??

Might be part of something like a micro-perforated bag (used for bread etc.)?? Not quite the same look, though.

It also seems that bits of plastic are showing up everywhere in nature. If the substrate is thermoplastic, should melt with some heat.

Anything else revealed at higher magnification?

Hobbyst46
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Re: Man made?

#3 Post by Hobbyst46 » Thu Jun 13, 2019 5:32 pm

I would place a magnet near it, to check the suspicion that it contains iron (and/or nickel).

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75RR
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Re: Man made?

#4 Post by 75RR » Thu Jun 13, 2019 6:10 pm

Thanks PeteM and Hobbyst46.

Thought it might be, though I was hoping it would be something natural and therefore exotic.

I am afraid that was all I found. Did not think to keep the sample and have since washed the slide.

Total length was not much over 160µm so I would have struggled to run tests on it.

Will keep an eye out for larger pieces.
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MicroBob
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Re: Man made?

#5 Post by MicroBob » Thu Jun 13, 2019 8:10 pm

Hi together,
I think about which production process can lead to such a small holed pattern. Difficult to make a punch like this, injection moulding would be difficult too. Laser cutting, etching?
For a filter one would use a mesh or felt.
In electronics such fine (and much finer) shapes are used - separator of an electrolyte capacitor?

Bob

PeteM
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Re: Man made?

#6 Post by PeteM » Thu Jun 13, 2019 8:25 pm

Bob - for some of the plastics, a process similar to calendaring can be used to make micro holes. Cheers, P.

MichaelG.
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Re: Man made?

#7 Post by MichaelG. » Thu Jun 13, 2019 8:28 pm

This looks like a candidate:
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/P ... c/figure/2

MichaelG.
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Hobbyst46
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Re: Man made?

#8 Post by Hobbyst46 » Thu Jun 13, 2019 9:01 pm

Compared to the forams and radiolaria that I have seen so far (very few, unforetunately) the mesh pattern on this dark piece of sample appears to be too uniform to be natural.

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Re: Man made?

#9 Post by PeteM » Thu Jun 13, 2019 9:52 pm

This one kind of takes us full circle; from diatoms to microporous battery anodes. Not likely the original found material, but still cool:

https://phys.org/news/2016-10-ancient-f ... cient.html

And yet another technique to replace lithographic substrates:

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/article ... ivAbstract

And then there's "biochar" - vaguely similar and possibly likely to be made in some industrial-scale process in the future:

https://biocharlie.com/blogs/news/70415 ... althy-soil
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75RR
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Re: Man made?

#10 Post by 75RR » Fri Jun 14, 2019 12:42 pm

PeteM wrote:This one kind of takes us full circle; from diatoms to microporous battery anodes. Not likely the original found material, but still cool:

https://phys.org/news/2016-10-ancient-f ... cient.html
Agree that it is probably not the one but yet it is the closest in regularity i.e. hole diameter and spacing, I would say.

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Peter
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Re: Man made?

#11 Post by Peter » Fri Jun 14, 2019 6:50 pm

Hi 75RR,
It could be the remains of an insect's compound eye. On the lower right corner of the object I imagine I can see lenses bulging from the holes.
Peter.

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75RR
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Re: Man made?

#12 Post by 75RR » Sat Jun 15, 2019 4:23 am

Thanks Peter
It could be the remains of an insect's compound eye. On the lower right corner of the object I imagine I can see lenses bulging from the holes.
I noticed that as well - tried to include it in the stack. However, the only close-up images of insect eyes that I have found seem to be hexagonal - though they are also remarkably regular in size and placing.

Having said that I found one that looks interesting (scroll down to red eye)

https://www.dreamstime.com/photos-image ... d-eye.html
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