Volcanic beach sand, Devil's Island, Antarctica
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Devil's Island | coarse-grained beach sand |
Location | Beach on Devil's Island, West Antarctica, 63°48'S, 057°17'W ; east of James Ross Island) |
Depositional facies | high-energy shoreline |
Provenance | mafic to intermediary volcanic |
Composition | pyroxene, hornblende, plagioclase, opaque ore minerals |
Texture | oarse-grained (mean ca. 1500 µ), very poorly sorted, rounded |
Petrographic thin section:
Description | Olive-green amphiboles and the black ore minerals are visible in the bright-field image. The translucent minerals in the dark field show the distinct first- and second-order colors and the cleavage of clinopyroxenes |
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Bright field | Dark field |
Sample number | heubeck0069 |
Collector | Dr. Bernd Weber, Potsdam |
Date of sampling | September 2005 |
Comments:
The composition of this beach sand is remarkable because of the the good preservation and dominace of minerals sensitive to chemical weathering