A classic guide to seeing rocks through a microscope.
This edition presents clarity on how minerals and textures reveal a rock’s history.
The content surveys a wide range of rocks from crystalline schists to various granitoids and eruptive rocks, with detailed microscopic descriptions and illustrated plates. It emphasizes the groundmass, mineral microlites, inclusions, and alteration features that reveal how rocks form and transform.
- Learn how microscopic features distinguish rock types, from rhyolites and trachytes to basalts and gabbros.
- See how inclusions, microlites, and groundmass structure tell a rock’s story.
- Explore how mineral changes reflect alteration, weathering, and magmatic processes.
- Visualize rock textures through plates and figure descriptions that accompany the text.
Ideal for readers who want a hands-on, field-informed view of igneous and metamorphic rocks at the micro level.