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SciArt of the Day: MicROCKScopica


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Bernardo Cesare's MicROCKScopica - Ocean Jasper

Bernardo Cesare's MicROCKScopica - Ocean Jasper

Most people equate geology with dull, grey rocks, but petrology Professor Bernardo Cesare is tapping into their spectacular beauty with his MicROCKScopica project. Using a standard technique for analyzing mineral composition of rocks, Cesare cuts and grinds sections of rock into 30-micron-thick slices (that’s three-hundredths of a millimeter), mounts them onto microscope slides and shines cross-polarized light through them. The result is a kaleidoscope of color that is as informative as it is beautiful.

Bernardo Cesare’s Ocean Jasper Series

The MicROCKScopica Project


Every day in September, we’re bringing you new science-art of the day. How would these images be useful for science communication? STEM education? Enticing people to learn more about science? Do they inspire you or frustrate you? Let us know below!

Kalliopi Monoyios About the Author: Kalliopi Monoyios is the illustrator of several best-selling science books including Neil Shubin's The Universe Within, Shubin’s Your Inner Fish, and Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution is True. Her illustration portfolio can be found at kalliopimonoyios.com. Follow her solo on Twitter at @eyeforscience. For tweets from the whole Symbiartic crew, Follow on Twitter @symbiartic.

The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.





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