Optical Mineralogy

This college text is well written. For those who have access to both thin sectioning equipment and a petrographic scope with universal stage, most minerals can be identified. Solid solution minerals, notably the Ca-Na sequence of feldspars can be quantitatively determined. Without the universal stage, much of the thin section determinations can still be done using information in this text. The first 151 pages cover principles and microscope equipment. The next 272 pages cover the individual minerals and their unique properties and identification in thin section. The index is 16 pages.