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morslaIt's been a little over a month since I started looking at the diamonds I'm using for my research project. I've photographed them; taken Electron Microscope images, and generally wrote down everything I could. Today was something different - it was time to start the next phase...
... and how else would a Geologist proceed, if not with a hammer?
The first bit is easy. Wrap a sample up in a snaplock bag. Then another. And another, and another... and then fit it into a stainless steel cylinder - sealed at one end. Place a matching bit of steel inside the cylinder - and then whack the end with a hammer, "disassembling" the sample for further analysis.
Of course, there had to be a few tricks, though. I need to measure carbon isotope ratios in the diamond, so it can't make contact with the steel (steel has plenty of carbon in it). The rocks are hard - well, they're diamonds, after all - so hitting them softly doesn't achieve much. Hitting them too hard renders the delicate non-diamond inclusions into powder...
After each sample was "cracked," I sat at a microscope with two pairs of forceps, carefully sorting out the debris. Pink, red, purple and orange garnets, apple-green clinopyroxenes, and emerald-green Cr-diopside crystals - plus individual diamonds, and graphite that didn't quite turn into diamond all those eons ago. Sitting still, leaning over a desk, working on intricate tasks like removing garnets smaller than dust motes, from remnant diamond, could be tricky. Fortunately I've had a lot of practice sitting at my desk, working at intricate tasks, over the decade and a half that I've been painting for...
I think I sat at the microscope for about seven hours today, with more work tomorrow. After that, I do believe it will be time to rest my eyes for a while...
... and how else would a Geologist proceed, if not with a hammer?
The first bit is easy. Wrap a sample up in a snaplock bag. Then another. And another, and another... and then fit it into a stainless steel cylinder - sealed at one end. Place a matching bit of steel inside the cylinder - and then whack the end with a hammer, "disassembling" the sample for further analysis.
Of course, there had to be a few tricks, though. I need to measure carbon isotope ratios in the diamond, so it can't make contact with the steel (steel has plenty of carbon in it). The rocks are hard - well, they're diamonds, after all - so hitting them softly doesn't achieve much. Hitting them too hard renders the delicate non-diamond inclusions into powder...
After each sample was "cracked," I sat at a microscope with two pairs of forceps, carefully sorting out the debris. Pink, red, purple and orange garnets, apple-green clinopyroxenes, and emerald-green Cr-diopside crystals - plus individual diamonds, and graphite that didn't quite turn into diamond all those eons ago. Sitting still, leaning over a desk, working on intricate tasks like removing garnets smaller than dust motes, from remnant diamond, could be tricky. Fortunately I've had a lot of practice sitting at my desk, working at intricate tasks, over the decade and a half that I've been painting for...
I think I sat at the microscope for about seven hours today, with more work tomorrow. After that, I do believe it will be time to rest my eyes for a while...
