FARMINGTON — In conjunction with Earth Science Week, UMF Assistant Professor of Geology Larry Tuttle and his students are presenting a pop-up exhibit on “Rocks and Minerals Down the Microscope.” The exhibition will be on display in the lower-level lobby of the Emery Community Arts Center on the University of Maine at Farmington campus through Nov. 19. It is free and open to the public.
Rocks and the minerals within are all around us from the hills and mountains around Farmington to the raw materials used to make the electronic components in our cell phones. This exhibit will showcase rocks looking down the microscope.
Display pieces in this geoart exhibit will consist of photographs of”‘rock thin sections” — very thin slices of rock (about the thickness of a human hair!) — glued to small rectangular pieces of glass, taken using a specialized optical microscope camera. From a geologist’s perspective, rock thin sections represent a vital means for examining microscopic-scale features of their samples that are otherwise difficult to observe.