Frank K. Mazdab is an an independent analytical/research mineralogist currently based in Tucson. He is affiliated with the University of Arizona, where he works with faculty and students in the Economic Geology group in an essentially adjunct “mostly-researcher/occasional-instructor” position. To that end, he has put together this website to share his interest for mineralogy & petrology with the global online community. So whether you’re a professional geologist, a student, a mineral collector, or simply someone with a curiosity and appreciation of science & nature, you’ll find something among these pages that is both interesting and informative.
Getting deeper into the geology, the thin section scans page introduces the most extensive content so far, with over 300 image pairs (in unpolarized light and between sheets of crossed polarizing film) of high-resolution entire thin section scans of rare & exotic rocks; so far, the figure captions are variably complete, but they are being updated regularly. Many of the samples also feature accompanying analytical data.
The video atlas of mineral in thin section page also contains extensive content and is being regularly expanded. Here you’ll find short videos (~30 seconds each) showing the optic properties with rotation of the dominant minerals in the FKM series thin sections. These videos feature PPL, XP and optic figure rotations, and should provide beginning optical mineralogy and petrography students with an opportunity to practice their mineral identification outside of the microscope lab.
Finally, the optical mineralogy tutorials, “how to” PDFs, digital books and electron microscopy pages (all under the continuing education tab) offer advanced original content covering subjects such as the optical properties of rare minerals, balancing complex mineral reactions, microprobe analytical strategies, and normalizing microprobe analytical data. This additional content is geared specifically towards graduate and advanced-level undergraduate students with research interests in mineralogy or petrology, and is intended to enhance their understanding and appreciation of the science.
[Note: This is an outstanding source of information on microscopy].
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