A piece of the mantle: a spinel lherzolite xenolith from the Canadian Cordillera. Clear olivine, brown orthopyroxene, bright green chromian clinopyroxene and opaque (black) spinel. Plane polarized light, it's a bit thicker than standard. The mantle is beautiful. #thinSectionThursday #xenolith #mantle #geology

Rock on the beach at Barnum Point, Camano Island, WA. Looks like a granodiorite peppered with xenoliths. Igneous petrologists chime in. Likely weathered out of the till that caps the bluffs or a dropstone from floating ice on marine water incursion during the Everson interstade. Source rock provenance not known. Ref. Geologic map of the Juniper Beach 7.5-minute quadrangle, WDGER Geologic Map GM70. #geology #igneous #xenolith #iceage #glaciation #intrusive #PNW #washingtonstate #CamanoIsland

Santa has arrived in my house, and with a distinctly apt #CriticalMinerals theme this year I might add! Thank you to my #secretsanta (not on birdapp) for thoroughly spoiling me... I received some #crocoite from Zeehan in Tassie, a wee mantle #xenolith from Mount Elephant in Victoria, and these amazing fragments from the #CampoDelCielo meteorite!!! 🥰
Thank you to the @SS_RockExchange for organising the best Secret Santa around for another year!