Vaguely Informed Commentary From the Wide World of Earth Science
Chris Rowan is a geologist specialising in the dark arts of paleomagnetism, and getting people to pay him to travel to exotic destinations for fieldwork. Having drilled up New Zealand during his PhD, he is now a post-doc at the University of Johannesburg.
What the heck does 'Highly Allochthonous' mean?
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Category: geopuzzling
Posted on: July 25, 2008 11:18 AM, by Chris Rowan
Whilst I struggle to cope with the suddent onset of dementia in my beloved but aging laptop (which causes it to switch off 5 seconds after I switch it on, before it even gets to the stage of booting up), here's a simple one for you. How big is this piece of muscovite?
Update: Click through for the answer.
Be as precise as you dare...
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Comments
Smaller than Muscovy.
Posted by: Bob O'H | July 25, 2008 12:04 PM
On my screen, it measures 0.021005 Smoots.
Posted by: (((Billy))) | July 25, 2008 3:29 PM
Hmm... Don't know nothin' 'bout mineralogy, but based on this image and this image, I'm going to guess that it's a very small piece of muscovite, no more than a few millimeters.
Posted by: HP | July 25, 2008 4:12 PM
Bigger than a breadbox.
Posted by: Tegumai Bopsulai, FCD | July 25, 2008 6:30 PM
1" X 1.3"
Posted by: cope | July 25, 2008 7:16 PM
7 mm!
Posted by: KC | July 25, 2008 8:02 PM
I measured it very carefully. It is 394 pixels wide and 325 pixels high.
Posted by: Tegumai Bopsulai, FCD | July 25, 2008 10:49 PM
4.6cm east to west.
Posted by: christie | July 26, 2008 4:35 AM
a few hundred microns?
Posted by: Divalent | July 26, 2008 3:24 PM
I'm guessing it is a hand sample. So about the size of your hand.
On the laptop: Sounds like mine. May need new battery.
Posted by: Greg Laden | July 26, 2008 11:08 PM
2.5mm
Posted by: Laura | July 27, 2008 12:17 PM
Thinking about it some more, the real answer is, "It's muscovite, who cares?" ;)
Posted by: KC | July 27, 2008 10:34 PM
hmmmm.... well, something for scale would be nice (Im kidding!) but I'm guessing that based on all the books of muscovite Ive come across that this might be quite large. If it was a very small piece of muscovite it would be more transparent, you can see from the photo that it is a nice specimen with good cleavage on the 'C' axis. I really don't know and willingly accept any answer you say ;)
Posted by: volcanogodless | July 28, 2008 1:00 AM
126,439,506 unit cells.
Posted by: Lab Lemming | July 28, 2008 6:31 AM
The cloud forest growing in the middle is a big clue.
Posted by: Tegumai Bopsulai, FCD | July 28, 2008 5:18 PM
Hmmm, looks like activity died up here. To move things along, in addition to my guess above, I'll also claim any other size not claimed by anyone else. (But won't truly feel I won if my first guess is wrong.)
So, how big is it, eh?
Posted by: Divalent | July 31, 2008 12:07 AM
Sorry, I didn't mean to leave you in suspense for so long... The answer is now up.
Divalent is, of course, technically the winner, but his devious logic games have no effect on me.
Posted by: Chris Rowan | July 31, 2008 1:47 PM