rock and mineral sample give away

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jb89
Posts: 101
Joined: Fri Jun 21, 2019 9:09 am
Location: Denver, Co

rock and mineral sample give away

#1 Post by jb89 » Wed Aug 07, 2019 7:30 pm

Hey everyone,

I am moving to a new apartment and that has spurred me to go through my rocks and minerals, instead of throwing anything out I figured I'd offer them up here.

I have some rock billets which would look great as a petrographic thin section but will require a lot of effort.
- Billets will require a LOT of grinding, you might be able to get it fairly close with a belt sander but it's still going to be a lot of work.
- Silicon carbide sanding grit would be nice but diamond sandpaper would work just fine.
- I am willing to write out a full guide on this or answer questions if needed.

I have tons of calcite crystals that would look good either as a thin section or in a stereoscope
- Soft enough that these would be fairly easy to make
- Grind wet and slow or they will actually turn into a different mineral, "Anhydrite"
- many of these calcite samples are lightly phosphorescent(orange)

Tons of samples of halite from the strataca salt mine.
-soft but soluble in water so grinding would be best done in oil or dry
-halite generally looks boring ish under thin section but this material allegedly has 100 million year old algal matter in it and it would be great if someone wanted to look into it that far!

Quartz crystals from a Quartz quarry in Arkansas.
-Look good in hand sample/ stereo microscope
- Who doesn't appreciate a nice crystal?


I have ordered some petrographic slides and cover slips to include with the samples (much easier to use than biologic for these purposes) and would be willing to start shipping the samples out as soon as everything is here.


I will pay shipping to the continental US, if you're overseas I may be able to cover it I just don't want to guarantee that just yet.

I would like to have everything ready to ship as soon as the slides get in, so maybe a week or two.
If I run out of these samples maybe I will just give you some random other minerals! I only have 7 of the billets and they require a large amount of work so please let me know if you do or do not want one of those.
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