Having spent a couple of afternoons drilling pieces of stalagmite to send off to Melbourne to be dated, we've also collected some pieces to have a look at the structure of the stals. Basically we're having a look at the crystal structure of the stals, whether they're calcite or aragonite (two of the forms of calcium carbonate). Both are ok, but a mixture is a nightmare to work with. Anyway, this is done using X-ray diffraction, basically firing x-rays at a randomly orientated powder of the sample and measuring at what angles the strongest X-rays are diffracted at. Its quite a simple and easy process and involved using this new machine, the Kristalloflex:
Its located in the geology building on the other side of campus and so was my first trip down to the other half of the department (basically when first founded most of the subjects were divided amongst two departments, a research one and a teaching one, they're reuniting them now, and so whilst now officially the same department, we occupy two sites, up until they finish work on constructing a new building to bring them all up the hill to us).
I'm off on field-trip for the next week to Eden in New South Wales, I'm demonstrating on the first-year residential field-trip. It should be good fun, hopefully! I'll be away for a week so there probably won't be any blog-posts until next Sunday, but you never know. Speak to you soon.
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