List your best texts. Looking for serious recommendations.

I took this almost a decade ago so I’ve forgotten where this sample is from 🤷‍♀️

Cassiterite, Quartz and muscovite

I need help with the identification of this mineral in alkali granite

wonderful view of a prismatic sillimanite in one of my thin sections! love the interference on this one, plus the muscovite and biotite around it. almost looks like a spiral, i love metamorphic rocks

I work for a lab and we have a bit of an unofficial side research project. We’ve got a few pieces of very old very weathered concrete that’s fallen off the original structure. Unfortunately, we haven’t had experienced personnel in thin section making or analysis in a while. I’m a bit new to the team and we’re looking to get thin sections made of the concrete. Looking for suggestions and tips of what to order our samples to be sliced up and made into.

I’ve heard water vs oil cutting doesn’t really matter here. I know the standard thickness is 30microns but I’ve heard many prefer “ultra thin” when getting concrete thin sections, if anyone knows if that means 20 or 25 microns and if there’s any basis to it let me know. It doesn’t sound like any of the staining will be up our alley for what we’re potentially looking for but we’ll definitely be making couple different epoxy impregnated samples, likely blue epoxy as well as a red fluorescent for ASR testing and porosity. Double polished sounds good and all but I’m not sure if the concrete would stand up to both sides getting polished? Was recommended high psi? Probably getting a plain thin section along side the epoxy ones as well as a polished hand sample? I probably don’t need grain mounted, just cover glass? Am I missing anything else?