SEM Update - Part 4

Well it has finally arrived. Truth be told, I actually had written them off in my mind. (Mentioned back here Part 1, part 2, and part 3) But even though they said 2 weeks and it actually took 3 months I got back the results of the rock I sent in. I copied a couple of the images that they sent along below but you can check out the full report if your so inclined Here. Overall, not bad. The images are nice and clean, although I have no clue what part of the rock they scanned. But they did send back an elemental analysis which I was not expecting. So I would give them a grade of B- for nice pictures but a major delay in getting them and an unknown location of scans.

And as of today they did not post my pictures up on their blog like they said they would but they might do so at some point in the future.

SEM Update

So in following with the update theme today I figured I would update you on the SEM thing I had done a little while back (find the original post HERE and the follow up HERE) Well the original message I got said:

"It should take about 2 weeks for the results to post to the ASPEX website"

Uh huh. Right 2 weeks. Well I sent it in on February 17th, which was about 2 months ago and I STILL have not heard anything about my sample. So we will see.

SEM Update

So I sent off the APEX form to get my free SEM image (scanning electron microscope image, they want me to say scanning electron microscope instead of SEM. I mean really, does anyone who wants an SEM image not know what it means, and if you don't know what it means, you likely don't want or need one.) Anyway, I sent it off and it included the form above and a small portion of the rock I showed last week. This isn't the completed form because I prefered not to have my address and info spread across the internet. But we will see how quickly this turns around and how well it turns out.

Free SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) image anyone?

So I was recently contacted by a person named Jeffrey from ASPEX, a company that produces Scanning Electron Microscopes and as a gimic he wanted me to mention that they have a promotion going on for a free SEM image of your choice. All you have to do is send in a sample and they will post the image to their website for all to see. Here are the exact details:

"People can send us any mineral or rock, or even a dead insect...anything they want to see a picture of under a powerful microscope. It's pretty cool. Once we receive the samples, we'll notify senders of their results via email. You can view other reports we've done here: http://www.aspexcorp.com/resources/send_sample.html"

Seems interesting so far so I emailed him for some more info and he sent me back the submission process:

Here's how the free sample offer works:

You'll need to instruct your readers to download and print this form from the ASPEX website.
They'll fill out the form and mail it along with the sample they want scanned to:

ASPEX Corporation
Free Sample Submissions
175 Sheffield Dr.
Delmont, PA 15626

Once ASPEX has completed the scan, the images and report will be posted on ASPEX's website here.
It should take about 2 weeks for the results to post to the ASPEX website, and we will also notify submitters via email. Samples scanned for free will not be returned.


My Turn

So I figured, what the hell. I'll give it a try.

Below is a picture of the sample I am going to send. I'm not entirely sure what it is but it seems to be a piece of basalt with some yellow quartz crystals growing on the inside, similar to a geode. The plan is to fill out the form today then I will follow up with posts as I get the materials and send out the sample. So lets see how this goes.