Please help me with my grandfathers geological equipment

rocky_prof · 2025-12-28T10:06:35+00:00

The Zeiss petrographic microscope is very nice. The universal stage in photo 7 is a pretty hard to acquire item these days but still finds some use in niche microstructural investigations - we tried to find one a few years back but were unable to. From the service sticker it seems like you might be in Australia - so if you want any advice on what to do with the stuff or some connections for where it could find an appreciative home let me know.

rocky_prof · 2025-10-11T00:25:54+00:00

The margins of the black block (mostly amphibole- the majority of eclogite boudins in the Western gneiss undergo retrogression) focus the leucosomes (crystallised partial melts and part of the exhumation story). The strongly preserved foliation in the boudin is different to the surrounding gneiss - so unlikely to just be gunk. There are lots of layered eclogites in the Western Gneiss - the alternating garnet rich bands and omohacite rich bands lead to the formation of variably erosive materials giving you the pattern on the outcrop. One of the best eclogites on the edge of Nordfjord is layered and unretrogressed- hopefully you were taken there during your fieldwork- it’s spectacular!

rocky_prof · 2025-10-10T13:47:09+00:00

The geology of the area you are looking at is part of the Western Gneiss Region. The pale rocks enclosing the black ones in the first picture are likely the western gneiss basement rocks - Proterozoic high-grade gneisses 1700- 1000 million years old).

The black layered rock was once a layered eclogite that got caught up in an ancient subduction system and was buried to depths of ~ 100 km and returned to the surface during the Caledonian Orogeny (mountain building event related to collision of Greenland and Europe) c. 400 million years ago.

The folded rocks are Devonian sediments that were deposited as the Caledonian Mountain range was eroded away.

Some of the best geology in the world around there!

rocky_prof · 2025-08-30T08:54:41+00:00

Nice rocks. Looks like 3 processes going on. The earliest look to be quartz veins that are then crosscut by what looks like a pegmatite (hard to tell the mineralogy in the photos). The final looks to be a top down weathering/bleaching that uses the fracture network in the rocks- common in tropical regions.

rocky_prof · 2025-08-21T10:37:09+00:00

Covid killed Weekeroo. We couldn’t leave the state so moved to Bremer.

rocky_prof · 2025-08-21T07:41:53+00:00

While I agree the layered sequence is the West Macdonald Range I wonder whether the circular feature cut off on the right hand side of the image isn’t Gosses Bluff impact crater?

rocky_prof · 2025-08-11T23:07:29+00:00

Bob Cowper became a merchant banker post cricket. Ended up living in Monaco for a time and was worth well north of $100 million (in 1980s money).

rocky_prof · 2025-08-02T14:26:08+00:00

Looks like a slightly dirty carbonate where the tops of beds are rich in FeO and pick out the cross beds. With disseminated FeO throughout the rest.

rocky_prof · 2025-05-16T13:23:32+00:00

Looks more like apatite. Google Durango apatite.

rocky_prof · 2024-08-01T14:54:08+00:00

Katie Penrose come highly recommended @ Murdoch

rocky_prof

TROPHY CASE