monazite, yttrium, and garnet

This morning I helped clovis_t load the car so he could head off to the Falls Festival. I then spent a bit of time doing uni work while his mum made some raspberry jam. Needless to say, later in the day I had to make some scones and whip some cream to go with the jam. I went for one walk on my own, and then baronsnorri stopped by on his way home from running errands and we went for another walk. We went up to a nearby quarry, and had fun finding the contact between the valley mudstone and the dolerite in the quarry. As a bonus, right at the contact there is a bike path built by someone with a passion for Mt. bike adventures and plenty of time on their hands--the path went through the woods up the side of the hill, with plenty of built in jumps and many corners with the trail built up and banked to handle high-speed descents. We walked up the trail, which ended at a high pasture (occupied by a horse). Near as we can tell, the bikers go up the hill just to turn around and come right back down it again.

I've just sent an e-mail to the metamorphic petrology list asking for comments on one of my samples, and posted the query (and photos!) on my other blog if any of you are curious or have thoughts as to why I'd have such a huge cluster of monazite with high levels of yttrium included in the core of this garnet while every other garnet with monazite inclusions in their core have low-Y monazites in the core and high-Y monazite in the rims.

Now that I've sought comment on that topic, it is time to return to work...

monazite, yttrium, and garnet

This morning I helped clovis_t load the car so he could head off to the Falls Festival. I then spent a bit of time doing uni work while his mum made some raspberry jam. Needless to say, later in the day I had to make some scones and whip some cream to go with the jam. I went for one walk on my own, and then baronsnorri stopped by on his way home from running errands and we went for another walk. We went up to a nearby quarry, and had fun finding the contact between the valley mudstone and the dolerite in the quarry. As a bonus, right at the contact there is a bike path built by someone with a passion for Mt. bike adventures and plenty of time on their hands--the path went through the woods up the side of the hill, with plenty of built in jumps and many corners with the trail built up and banked to handle high-speed descents. We walked up the trail, which ended at a high pasture (occupied by a horse). Near as we can tell, the bikers go up the hill just to turn around and come right back down it again.

I've just sent an e-mail to the metamorphic petrology list asking for comments on one of my samples, and posted the query (and photos!) on my other blog if any of you are curious or have thoughts as to why I'd have such a huge cluster of monazite with high levels of yttrium included in the core of this garnet while every other garnet with monazite inclusions in their core have low-Y monazites in the core and high-Y monazite in the rims.

Now that I've sought comment on that topic, it is time to return to work...