Welcome! This tutorial is devoted to giving you
practice with identification of features in thin sections of carbonate rocks,
viewed with the polarizing light microscope.
Neither a text book nor a lab manual, this tutorial contains a collection of "virtual thin sections" annotated by experienced petrographers. They provide identifications, interpretations, and other guidance to what you will see. Do they identify every little bit of the image for you? Decidedly not! One of the most appealing aspects of petrography is exploration, opportunity for you to make observations and interpretations on your own.
Copy our experts and identify the things that you see. Examine a feature they have identified, then search about to find one of those things for yourself. Make decisions about those things you know for sure, those things you can guess, and those things about which you're clueless. Be assured that, in some cases, on a particular spot, our experts may be uncertain, too, because petrography is an endeavor that is full of opportunity for new discoveries. With this tutorial you can start on the road to becoming an expert yourself!