New thin sections to be prepared for x-ray analyses

Well, some good news finally.  Not only has Paul, our rock shop master, recently managed to finish my thin section mounts of grains from Borup for x-ray spectroscopy next month, but we're going to be able to get a few more prepped as well!  Trying a few different things now.  This time, we're trying some circular epoxy mounts of large chunks (several mm in size) as well as some simple drops of sample which I'll be making into a paste and then dropping onto a slide.  I don't know how commissioning on beamline 14-3 at the synchrotron at SSRL is going to go, but at least I'll have several samples to study while I'm there.  This could be a nice jump forward with the current research.  That would be pretty nice right now, since I've been feeling a bit stuck.  As of right now I have to wait until next summer (2014) before I can get up to Borup for some field work.  That leaves a lot of time in between to work on stuff in the lab, but I still haven't refined my objectives and current lab projects enough to properly prioritize them.  Oh well, no time like the present to look forward at what I can do to make the work more effective.  These new grain mounts and thin sections should be pretty helpful with that.