Mineral studies using confocal scanning laser microscopy.

Abstract

Confocal scanning laser microscopy offers a new way of studying crystalline defects in minerals in both two and three dimensions, and allows the structure of minerals to be examined in detail. The images of fission tracks in apatite crystals from a Peruvian granite, and a flake of low-uranium muscovite mica, are discussed and illustrated. The electronic nature of the images makes them ideally suited for state-of-the-art image analysis and data manipulation.