New To Micro

[adventureswithjim]

I've collected "big" fossils off and on for years...just recently picked up an Amscope with digital cam for micropaleo...getting some decent images of forams...but so much else as well. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by the breadth of knowledge required to know what you're looking at most of the time.

The sample I'm currently working with is sand from Edisto Beach, SC...so a crazy variety of things to look at, minerals, shells, fossils, organics that didn't get washed out.

Any thoughts on what this might be? maginfication is 160X best I can tell, I have the most basic kind of equipment right now, slowly accumualting better stuff.

Object looks hex tubular, fine lace crystal, sorry I don't have an exact size, still trying to find a way to measure the feild of view (microscope instructions are LIMITED at best), best guess is field of view in on the order of 1.4mm.

So much to learn...and that's cool. :-)

[rejd]

Welcome to the wonderful world of micro's! I really enjoy sorting micro fossils as a way to relax. I can't help you ID your find but I am sure someone on here may be able to help you. As for measuring, I use an eyepeice with a reticle. They can be had fairly cheaply off of eBay and are great. Not sure what scope you have but something similar to this would likely work for you http://www.amscope.com/extreme-widefield-10x-22-eyepiece-with-reticle-30mm.html.

Best of luck.

[adventureswithjim]

Microscope is amscope M120, and eye peices don't count...you take out eyepiece, insert cam. It's probably the wrong tool for micro-paleo, it's not great at tiny 3-D objects, esp. on the 400X setting. And I've had issues with the company lately...I ordered the graduated stage for the microscope and none of the bolt holes lined up...just typical annoying garbage...the microscope itself arrived missing a screw (to secure cam in place) their response was "so what's your point?"

Despite the low quality of service from amscope and their questionable hardware I'm having a lot of fun with it, though I have no idea what I'm looking at most of the time. Obviously, I have a long list of questions :-)

I always avoided micropaleo cause the idea of sitting hunched over a microscope wasn't that appealing, but I got the 1.3mp cam on this one, jacked into the puter full time, SO much easier to view images on 17" screen rather than hunched over the eyepiece.

I really have no idea what I'm doing with this, so I hope not to annoy the experienced forum users, this is truly exciting stuff for a nube, and with the amscope jacked directly into puter it's easy to snap hundreds of images per slide full of dust...

Here's one of my early foraminfera images, before I figured out cam could take larger format images...thoughts on the best way to organize my posts/images so as to not to annoy with over posting? Could I, for example, start a thread to post all the useful images for single location, add to it over time?

[Roz]

Sure, no problem.

[Raggedy Man]

Is that the triocular low-power scope with the boom?

[adventureswithjim]

Sorry, should have been more precise in my description. M120 is a basic monocular student microscope. My version has a 1.3 mp cam replacing the eye piece, which the mfg SAYS cam itself equal to a 40X eye piece, with 4X, 10X and 25X objectives, giving a total "magnification" of 160X, 400X and 2000X. For fossil work only the 160X is effective, very small thin fossils are OK at 400X, but the 2000X useless for the task. I have not yet gotten images of an object of known size to measure the pixels per mm of the final image. (then I could just measure pixels of other objects, convert back to standard sizes) I have a ruler with 1/16" marks, field of view just under the space in between the 1/16" lines, not very scientific (as in how wide are the lines to begin with?). As I said before, the instructions that came with microscope and camera don't cover much of anything and I'm just starting to figure out how to even get it to work.

I think I've gotten the wrong tool for the job, still able to get good images in a limited range, but the depth of field is very limiting. I've seen enough already to know I'm on the right track, this is really exciting stuff and the digital imaging just puts it over the top, what was once tedious (well, I thought so at the time....hunched over a micrscope) is now big bright beautiful images on the puter screen. So I'm looking forward to the right upgrades in the future now that I can see what this tool does for real.

[Al Dente]

I think the item in the first post is a piece of a sand dollar spine. They tend to be translucent and have a cross hatched pattern. Here are some irregular echinoid spines (Echinocardium) and the one I circled in red shows a little bit of this pattern.

[adventureswithjim]

Thanks Al, yeah,you're right looks like some kind of spine, echinoderms seem a likely candidate...urchins and sand dollars are common on my beaches. All I can do at this point though is take images, I have no idea how to curate the finds. Haven't yet developed the tools or techniques to move objects this small into containers to be looked at again later, nor have I found a source I can pick up just a couple of micro-paleo slides just to get to started.

[Mediospirifer]

Have fun with it! That's the most important thing.

I have two techniques that I use for manipulating too-small-for-tweezers pieces. The technique that was suggested to me here on TFF was to use a very small, damp, soft-bristle paintbrush. You can either buy a small art brush, or cut all but a few hairs off of a larger one. This works with minimum danger of breaking the sample, but I have had micros get lost in the brush! The other technique I've tried (that I was using fairly successfully before I learned about the paintbrush technique) was using a damp toothpick. That doesn't run the risk of losing a micro, but it takes a more careful touch. If you want to pick up something long and thin with the toothpick, touch the end of the piece, not the middle!

In both cases, it's the surface tension of the water on the tool that picks up the sample. To place the micro where you want it, put a small drop of water in the place where you want the micro to go, and touch the fossil-bearing tool to the water. Most of the time, the fossil will drop off into the water.

I've also found it very difficult to pick up fossils that are already in a drop of water. For the really fragile specimens, trying to manipulate them through the surface of the drop can break them! I leave things sitting until the drop evaporates, and only try to move dry pieces.

Good luck, and have fun!

[adventureswithjim]

Thanks for the tips, lots of practice required at this scale for sure. For just moving samples around I have a sewing needle tapped to the end of a pen. fine enough to get there, but the hard surfaces can make a thing pop away to god only knows where. Gonna take some practice for sure :-)

[Mediospirifer]

I also have a sewing needle for pushing things around--and I've also had things go flying! I bought a multiple-size pack of needles and a mechanical pencil, found a needle that fits in the pencil (tested by inserting point-first into where the lead comes out), then snipped the eye off and loaded it blunt-end-first into the pencil. The pencil holds the needle more securely than tape, and if I want to take it somewhere, I can retract it into the pencil and put it in a bag without worrying about stabbing myself! I also still have leads in the pencil in case my writing pencil runs out.

I do all of my sorting on paper party plates, the colorful, sturdy dessert plate type. They're fairly smoothly surfaced, and I have less of the flying sample problem than if I'm working on a rougher surface.

It looks like you may be working at a scale much smaller than me. My smallest-mesh sieve is 75 microns, so all of my samples are bigger than that.

One storage system I saw mentioned here on the Forum that I may implement myself is using pill capsules. You can fit a lot of submillimeter fossils in one capsule! Just make sure you label each capsule in some way (I would number them) and keep a spreadsheet of what went into each one.

Good luck!

[adventureswithjim]

My ultimate goal is to get down to the size of diatoms, not quite there yet :-) I'm finding alot of interesting things on the scale of these smaller forams, more than I expected.

I have a difficult time seeing the forams unaided, just looks like dust, the plate thing doesn't work so well for me, I may look into a cheap inspection scope, something with a wide field of view, like a 40X so I can sort out quartz xtals, take a closer look at what's left.

Is it just me or does is seem like not many people looking down in this scale? I feel like a good chance to make new discoveries....the world becomes incredibly large on the 1mm scale.

[Mediospirifer]

I think most of us work on larger scales. I know I've seen some Forum members post that they like 1 mm or larger.

Take a look at mikecable's "Show Us Your Scopes" page if you want to see what some of us are working with. I'd be interested in seeing a picture of your scope!

My Bausch & Lomb Stereozoom microscope has a 45x magnification. I like forams, although I spend more time with larger micros. Anything I can see with my scope is cool!

[adventureswithjim]

There's nothing fancy about my scope, amscope M120, just a basic student biologic model, with a cam. Right now, it's a matter of accumulating the tools and books on zero budget.

I'm facing a particularly difficult geologic problem here in SC...the low country sand all kind of looks like, I do miss those towering rock outcrops of KY and TN....the sands here are mostly former beach, deposited at different times, different methods and very little other work to go on when it comes to mapping and knowing where you are in the time scale when looking at a batch of sand. Time and weathering have removed most of the carbonates, leaving a fine grained quartz sand. To me, that says it's time go tiny where the fossils and other remains might be more durable...down to the scale of diatoms, which aren't usually carbonates at all. Micro fossils could be useful in resolving some of these mapping issues.

That's the theory anyways, besides, it's just cool to look at stuff this small :-)

[Mediospirifer]

For low-budget microfossiling, check out Herb's posts: Part 1 and Part 2.

Also for micromanipulator suggestions: LINK

There are some other useful suggestions in the Micropaleontology section. It's well worth reading through the old posts!

Have fun!

[Herb]

looks like an echinoderm spine. Good luck with the micros.