another rock

A rock I found in the hills east of Cima in the Mojave Preserve. The green specs are probably malachite or chrysacolla (relatively common copper minerals).

Barite

This represents two technological advances. First, I used a custom white balance for the exposure (I've been eyeballing the color correction in photoshop, but this is much more efficient and accurate). Second, I created a diffuser by cutting the top and bottom off of a plastic jug and placing it over the specimen. The highlights didn't blow out - the real test will be when I try to photograph something shiny and metallic again like muscovite or iron pyrite. The stacking software created a weird double image on the scale though - the small numbers are tenths of an inch. The smallest lines are hundredths. The white bladed crystals are barite, also called heavy spar. This was collected at the Yellow Pine Mine in Goodsprings, NV.

Iron Pyrite

This is iron pyrite (Fool's Gold) and crystal quartz. The field of view is just under a half inch. I used the same undiffused lightsource as the last post so the specular highlights are all blown out. This was collected near the bottom of the Colisseum Mine (a huge open pit mine located in the mountains west of the dry lake bed between Primm and Nipton Road).

Peridot

This is another attempt at focus stacking. I used four bright hot bare bulbs for light, which means the highlights are all blown out. As before, this isn't as sharp as I'd like. This specimen was collected from Dish Hill, which is a volcano in Southern California just off of Route 66 east of Barstow. The yellow green crystals are peridot, the dark green crystals are fayalite and the black mineral is pyroxene. This is a xenolith (which means it originated in the Earth's mantle and was ejected up to the surface during a volcanic eruption).