The Geoscience e-Laboratory (Ge-LAB)
A group of iCRAG members (UCC, TCD, NUIG and UCD) in partnership with the Open University have just succeeded in securing substantial funding from the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching…
POSTED 01/07/2021 - 17:46
New - St Austell Granite Collection
Dr Andy Tindle has created a new collection of 30 rocks and thin sections from the St Austell Granite in SW England.
The St Austell granite is famous for it's mines and china clay pits - zones where the hydrothermal activity…
POSTED 08/01/2024 - 15:32
Hello Hull and Phoenix!
The virtual microscope for Earth sciences has been on-line nearly 3 years, and each year around this time the number of users increases as the new university term begins. The largest number of users are still in the UK but that is slowly changing…
POSTED 01/07/2021 - 21:44
Thin Section Thursday
We've been tweeting Virtual Microscope images on Thursdays for a while now with the hashtag #ThinSectionThursday, and linking to the locations within individual thin sections using the share function in the VMfES. We never set up a twitter…
POSTED 01/07/2021 - 22:00
A New collection - British and Irish Meteorites
Meteorites are amazing objects, some are primitive rocks with features that formed in the early solar system, some are almost entirely metal. Meteorites are generally only found in museums or private collections but we've worked with the Natural…
POSTED 01/07/2021 - 22:10
New Academic Year
Each Autumn we see the numbers of people using the Virtual Microscope for Earth science increase, marking the beginning of a new year of petrology teaching.
So if you’re new to the virtual microscope, welcome. You might be wondering how…
POSTED 01/07/2021 - 22:19
The Martians are Here!
20 new Martian meteorite thin sections are now available on this site. They come from a range of sources but we’ve brought them together in one place. They used to be known as the SNC class of meteorites, but it is generally accepted that these…
POSTED 01/07/2021 - 22:32
Virtual microscope used in free course on 'Moons'
we’re excited that 'Moons' a new course from The Open University starts on the FutureLearn platform on Monday 17th March. The course is suitable for anyone with an interest…
POSTED 01/07/2021 - 22:39
Over 100 UK Rocks and Minerals Digitised and On-line
We've added a series of rocks in the last few weeks so we now have over 100 virtual UK rocks on-line, and 333 rocks in total on the site including the meteorites, Moon rocks and a few password protected collections.
As the location map…
POSTED 01/07/2021 - 23:06
Trinity College Dublin collection available as an OER
We're making another university teaching collection into an Open Educational resource. Here it is. Many thanks to Balz Kamber, Emma Tomlinson and…
POSTED 01/07/2021 - 23:26
A new teaching collection from the Open University
We’ve added 21 new virtual thin sections from an Open University teaching collection. Thanks to Professor Nigel Harris, chair of the Open University level 3…
POSTED 01/07/2021 - 23:39
A New Old Collection - Darwin's Rocks
We've finally managed to transfer a collection of 28 rocks from the old virtual microscope site to this new collections site. This collection is a set of rocks collected from around the world by…