An incredible resource for a geologist: Frank, the owner of this website, is an independent analytical/research mineralogist currently based in Tucson. Frank 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. As a professed hardcore introvert, he certainly values is thoughtful alone time sitting in front of humming high-tech instruments and collecting data; indeed, it’s an ideal work environment that meshes well with his introspective personality. Still, his job does requires him to periodically interact with other humans, and yes, he has to admit, he actually does get real joy and fulfillment from teaching and mentoring students, particularly when he is working one-on-one or in small groups. Given his preference for those smaller, more intimate academic settings, it then might seem somewhat ironic that his enthusiasm for education also extends more expansively toward outreach.
To that end, Frank has put together this website to share his passion 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 (or even if you’re just looking for one of his recipes, or want to check out the photos from Frank's last trip), hopefully you’ll find something among these pages that is both interesting and informative.
To introduce this website, Frank begins with the photo at the top of the page as a striking example of the wonders of mineralogy & petrology. The image looks like a piece of abstract art (and given the varied colors, lines, forms and textures, it could well be). But beyond simply its visual appeal, the subject of this image also exemplifies the petrologic fundamentals of rock, P (pressure), T (temperature) and X (“mole fraction”, a proxy for composition), the set of parameters which comprise the website name “rockPTX”, and which also occur as a unifying theme throughout the pages here.
The colorful image is in fact a photomicrograph of a thin section of a rock… a rock with quite a remarkable history (for a wider field of view of the thin section this photo was taken from, check out the unpolarized light scan of sample FKM-69b; the bright blue crystal pictured above is visible on the left center side of the upper image pair). This particular sample is a metamorphic rock… an unusual ultra-high pressure (UHP) whiteschist assemblage from Mautia Hill, Tanzania, formed roughly 550 million years ago. The vivid blue mineral in the center is yoderite, a rare Mg-Al-silicate so far found in only two places in the world (both in Africa). Yoderite and its surrounding whiteschist (which is essentially a stable combination of talc + kyanite, two of the other minerals in the photo) only form at high pressures. In fact, at one time during its formation, this particular rock was at 700-800°C and 10-11 kbars (~35 km of burial depth).
As an example of this incredible website, after many months of hardcore petrography, trying to take the most informative and yet aesthetically-pleasing photomicrographs, verifying uncertain end-member compositions on the microprobe, and compiling and hand-typing in data from a wide variety of sometimes contradictory sources, the fruit of Frank's labor is finally finished: the minerals from my Petrography of Exotic Rocks seminar are all together (in 3 volumes) in a new e-book series available online from the Apple iBooks Store.
This series is a photographic atlas of minerals viewed by transmitted light microscopy. Divided into the three optical classes (isotropic, uniaxial, and biaxial… a function of crystal system, of course), each volume features tabulated optical and ancillary physical properties of both common and rare species, information on distinguishing characteristics and similar species, as well as accompanying full-color, high resolution images taken under both plane-polarized light and crossed polarizers. For minerals where pleochroism or dispersion is notable, additional images (including conoscopic optic figures in some cases) are included to illustrate these properties.
But look around in other parts of the website .....For example, see: Video Atlas of Minerals in Thin Section
Also see Frank's normalization video: http://i2mportal.com/resource_detail.php?resource_id=9544
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