Mountain photograph on cover of OU S339 textbook, Mountain building

A new teaching collection from the Open University

We’ve added 21 new virtual thin sections from an Open University teaching collection. Thanks to Professor Nigel Harris, chair of the Open University level 3 module ‘Understanding the Continents’ for permission to post these thin sections. It’s a great collection of igneous and metamorphic rocks from the UK and elsewhere in the world. There are some particularly good thin sections in this collection with examples of rock types that aren’t well represented in other collections including several mylonites and a cataclasite. The eclogite and blueschist are some of the most colourful and beautiful thin sections we have on the virtual microscope website.

We will continue to add new collections as the opportunities arise and we get permission. So keep an eye out for collections appearing over the next month or two including British meteorites and a teaching collection from Trinity College Dublin that is currently password protected.