Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2013 11:28:08 GMT -5
The author is an acquaintance. He has no clue I am re-posting and I have zero financial incentive to do so. I just like the guy and his methods.
Press Announcement: Release of "A Field Guide to the Agates, Jaspers, and Opals, Volume IV, A Microscopy and Infrared Spectroscopy Study of Banded Agates and their Structures," 2013, 450 pp., by Donald Kasper. The book is color printed, spiral bound. The book retails for $265. The higher cost over my other books is just a reflection of the very costly instrumentation that was purchased to produce the book.
I am pleased to announce a major work dealing with the banded agates and their structures, which includes a polarizing microscopy study of structures, and study of all of the quartz polymorphs using infrared spectroscopy.
This book studies for the first time all of the structures found in banded agate systems. It includes a classification of the 35 types of banding systems that occur in silica rocks. It includes a microscopy study in plain and polarized light of their structures. For example, did you know there is no such thing as chalcedony versus agate? In polarizing microscopy, there is clearly a continuous blend of banding, granular, oolitic, and mosaic quartz structures in all possible combinations. Many agates are not solid fibrous silica, but only have it here and there in bits in specimens. What do we call those? Agates. Of course, they are really blends. Sedimentary agates are oolitic cherts that blend into agates here and there in places in specimens, so I document the chert-agate rock species in this text.
The book has several firsts, which are major scientific discoveries in their own right. First is the discovery that using reflectance infrared, it is possible to tell the crystal face of a specimen being studied. This is very important since classical infrared involves bashing specimens into powders for study. This makes complex crystal blends. These blends all graph differently, leading to the illusion that infrared is unreliable when, in fact, it is poor scientific method that has caused this problem. Now we can see that infrared is extremely accurate and repeatable in mineral composition, taking into account the crystal face we are seeing.
With the discovery that reflectance infrared can tell us crystallography, I have been able to find the presence of high-quartz and opal-HQ (opaline high-quartz) in the agates, amongst other new silica species. To this day, there are no infrared spectral graphs of high-quartz before my work that I could locate in the literature. This has led to the myth that all high-quartz inverts to low-quartz, and only that can therefore be found in our agate and other silica rocks. This is untrue, and relates to the powder infrared method that has several severe consequences, including its assassination of the 1200 cm region silica spectrum. You must use reflectance to see that spectrum segment, and when you do, you will find 3 new spectral bands indicating high-quartz, cristobalite, and tridymite. So, the 1100 cm infrared peak is really a doublet peak set at 1200 and 1100. Hey, who knew, with all that abysmally poor science and old instrumentation. The equipment has advanced, but no one apparently has bothered to look again. And you thought geology was modern science. It is a poorly funded, and often very backward discipline.
For use as collectors reading the literature, we are told agates form from opal-CT. Unfortunately, with superior instrumentation and a huge sample population of material studied, there are 3 additional spectral quartz types, all confused together with opal-CT in the literature. This book walks through all the spectral forms with sample specimen photos, to explain all of the agates, jaspers, and the volcanic rocks and what they show, as people commonly confuse them.
The book also walks through all of the volcanic rocks to show those commonly confused as jaspers. In infrared, it is possible using reflectance technology to clearly distinguish between an agate, a jasper, and an opal, and any volcanic rocks. Current geomythology is that the terms "agate," "jasper," and "opal" are slang, propagated by poor science and a limited set of samples studied. Whereas the typical sampling in a research paper is literally one or two rocks, over 5,000 spectral graphs from over 10,000 specimens were used in this work. The issues of agates and volcanic rocks are complex, and simply require a superior set of samples to study. My 6 pages of master tables on all of the quartz species that comprise these silica rocks uses almost 100 reference samples for those species segregations, not one or two. There are some variations, and you get to see what I have found.
Using infrared, the book does not get involved in technical jargon. It shows the graphs and reference photos so that you can understand and learn to identify these rocks by their textures and structures. For example, bladed mineralization in geodes are always called calcite pseudomorphs. Some may actually be calcite, but when the blades graphs as high-quartz, they are a high-quartz to cristobalite silica form where cristobalite is well-known to make bladed structures. It is the promotion of calcite, for example, that perpetuates the myth that geodes form from weathering, while these quartz species mixed with the highest temperature feldspar found on Earth (sanidine) in the shells, implies their true origin in volcanic melt systems. Tridymite, for example, I commonly found mixed with sanidine.
Using infrared spectroscopy, I show the major agate group that I call the calc-silicas, formed by a combination of carbonate and silica. I show the agate group apatite-silica, formed by partial replacement of bone fossils. and barite-silica formed by partial barite replacement. I show all of the major clay minerals in infrared found in the agates. The clays are very important to understanding the complex structures found in agates. I also show that the plume and icicle pendant structures on the walls of vein agates are high temperature quartz forms such as high-quartz and low-cristobalite, and that silica species in the center have low temperature silica forms, establishing the volcanic nature of the formation and deposition of these silica systems (external high temperature grading to internal low temperature).
It is also interesting to see that, after all the scientific ranting about how agates have so much water, the shells of volcanic geodes have the water, but the agate cores do not, as one example of many agate structures studied. The book also hunts for proof of groundwater related to agate formation. This is done by hunting for organic carbon that comes in with the groundwater. If you are looking for lots of organic carbon in your agates formed by weathering, I have bad news, but in weathered agates and some sedimentary agates sites in the Eastern US, it can be found. I show you how to visually identify this inclusion mineralization.
Based on the crystallography work, I show a case study with Tiger's Eye that identifies how scientists consistently promote the myth that agates are 99.8% silica, plus some water. If you do not understand the crystallographic structure of agates and aim the laser detector on the wrong crystal face, I show a pure quartz graph of a Tiger's Eye specimen. I can then flip the specimen on its c-axis (having figured out how to find it), and then I show the graph for crocidolite found, the silicate that produces the schiller effect in Tiger's Eye. This case study shows that using sloppy methodology you can only see silica, but that using a smart approach taking advantage of the crystallography, infrared can then see the mineral inclusions in the silica. You cannot throw agates at spectrometers and get good data, you have to be patient and use a carefully crafted scientific approach.
Of course, you have to know that infrared spectrometers do not report elemental compounds content. They report content and structure blended together. Once you see that, you see a whole new world. Now suddenly, peaks are not just silica and oxygen (Si-O) in graphs, which is all that the science reports at this time. Now you get to see the SiO2 peaks, the SiO4, peaks, the Si4O8 peaks, (gasp) the Si4O10 peaks. Oh boy, infrared is showing us much more than before. It also can show us silicate structures. We can now see complex mineral components. Come see and experience that world in this book. Dogma alert. You old dogmas about agates as quartz varieties is about to take a fall. You have been warned. The real story is just much more complex than bland conclusions that have come before.
I will post this new book entry on my web site soon at donaldkasper.com.
Regards,
Donald Kasper
I am pleased to announce a major work dealing with the banded agates and their structures, which includes a polarizing microscopy study of structures, and study of all of the quartz polymorphs using infrared spectroscopy.
This book studies for the first time all of the structures found in banded agate systems. It includes a classification of the 35 types of banding systems that occur in silica rocks. It includes a microscopy study in plain and polarized light of their structures. For example, did you know there is no such thing as chalcedony versus agate? In polarizing microscopy, there is clearly a continuous blend of banding, granular, oolitic, and mosaic quartz structures in all possible combinations. Many agates are not solid fibrous silica, but only have it here and there in bits in specimens. What do we call those? Agates. Of course, they are really blends. Sedimentary agates are oolitic cherts that blend into agates here and there in places in specimens, so I document the chert-agate rock species in this text.
The book has several firsts, which are major scientific discoveries in their own right. First is the discovery that using reflectance infrared, it is possible to tell the crystal face of a specimen being studied. This is very important since classical infrared involves bashing specimens into powders for study. This makes complex crystal blends. These blends all graph differently, leading to the illusion that infrared is unreliable when, in fact, it is poor scientific method that has caused this problem. Now we can see that infrared is extremely accurate and repeatable in mineral composition, taking into account the crystal face we are seeing.
With the discovery that reflectance infrared can tell us crystallography, I have been able to find the presence of high-quartz and opal-HQ (opaline high-quartz) in the agates, amongst other new silica species. To this day, there are no infrared spectral graphs of high-quartz before my work that I could locate in the literature. This has led to the myth that all high-quartz inverts to low-quartz, and only that can therefore be found in our agate and other silica rocks. This is untrue, and relates to the powder infrared method that has several severe consequences, including its assassination of the 1200 cm region silica spectrum. You must use reflectance to see that spectrum segment, and when you do, you will find 3 new spectral bands indicating high-quartz, cristobalite, and tridymite. So, the 1100 cm infrared peak is really a doublet peak set at 1200 and 1100. Hey, who knew, with all that abysmally poor science and old instrumentation. The equipment has advanced, but no one apparently has bothered to look again. And you thought geology was modern science. It is a poorly funded, and often very backward discipline.
For use as collectors reading the literature, we are told agates form from opal-CT. Unfortunately, with superior instrumentation and a huge sample population of material studied, there are 3 additional spectral quartz types, all confused together with opal-CT in the literature. This book walks through all the spectral forms with sample specimen photos, to explain all of the agates, jaspers, and the volcanic rocks and what they show, as people commonly confuse them.
The book also walks through all of the volcanic rocks to show those commonly confused as jaspers. In infrared, it is possible using reflectance technology to clearly distinguish between an agate, a jasper, and an opal, and any volcanic rocks. Current geomythology is that the terms "agate," "jasper," and "opal" are slang, propagated by poor science and a limited set of samples studied. Whereas the typical sampling in a research paper is literally one or two rocks, over 5,000 spectral graphs from over 10,000 specimens were used in this work. The issues of agates and volcanic rocks are complex, and simply require a superior set of samples to study. My 6 pages of master tables on all of the quartz species that comprise these silica rocks uses almost 100 reference samples for those species segregations, not one or two. There are some variations, and you get to see what I have found.
Using infrared, the book does not get involved in technical jargon. It shows the graphs and reference photos so that you can understand and learn to identify these rocks by their textures and structures. For example, bladed mineralization in geodes are always called calcite pseudomorphs. Some may actually be calcite, but when the blades graphs as high-quartz, they are a high-quartz to cristobalite silica form where cristobalite is well-known to make bladed structures. It is the promotion of calcite, for example, that perpetuates the myth that geodes form from weathering, while these quartz species mixed with the highest temperature feldspar found on Earth (sanidine) in the shells, implies their true origin in volcanic melt systems. Tridymite, for example, I commonly found mixed with sanidine.
Using infrared spectroscopy, I show the major agate group that I call the calc-silicas, formed by a combination of carbonate and silica. I show the agate group apatite-silica, formed by partial replacement of bone fossils. and barite-silica formed by partial barite replacement. I show all of the major clay minerals in infrared found in the agates. The clays are very important to understanding the complex structures found in agates. I also show that the plume and icicle pendant structures on the walls of vein agates are high temperature quartz forms such as high-quartz and low-cristobalite, and that silica species in the center have low temperature silica forms, establishing the volcanic nature of the formation and deposition of these silica systems (external high temperature grading to internal low temperature).
It is also interesting to see that, after all the scientific ranting about how agates have so much water, the shells of volcanic geodes have the water, but the agate cores do not, as one example of many agate structures studied. The book also hunts for proof of groundwater related to agate formation. This is done by hunting for organic carbon that comes in with the groundwater. If you are looking for lots of organic carbon in your agates formed by weathering, I have bad news, but in weathered agates and some sedimentary agates sites in the Eastern US, it can be found. I show you how to visually identify this inclusion mineralization.
Based on the crystallography work, I show a case study with Tiger's Eye that identifies how scientists consistently promote the myth that agates are 99.8% silica, plus some water. If you do not understand the crystallographic structure of agates and aim the laser detector on the wrong crystal face, I show a pure quartz graph of a Tiger's Eye specimen. I can then flip the specimen on its c-axis (having figured out how to find it), and then I show the graph for crocidolite found, the silicate that produces the schiller effect in Tiger's Eye. This case study shows that using sloppy methodology you can only see silica, but that using a smart approach taking advantage of the crystallography, infrared can then see the mineral inclusions in the silica. You cannot throw agates at spectrometers and get good data, you have to be patient and use a carefully crafted scientific approach.
Of course, you have to know that infrared spectrometers do not report elemental compounds content. They report content and structure blended together. Once you see that, you see a whole new world. Now suddenly, peaks are not just silica and oxygen (Si-O) in graphs, which is all that the science reports at this time. Now you get to see the SiO2 peaks, the SiO4, peaks, the Si4O8 peaks, (gasp) the Si4O10 peaks. Oh boy, infrared is showing us much more than before. It also can show us silicate structures. We can now see complex mineral components. Come see and experience that world in this book. Dogma alert. You old dogmas about agates as quartz varieties is about to take a fall. You have been warned. The real story is just much more complex than bland conclusions that have come before.
I will post this new book entry on my web site soon at donaldkasper.com.
Regards,
Donald Kasper
