Fig. 2: Microlites and nanolites on vesicle walls in natural pink pumice. | Communications Earth & Environment

Fig. 2: Microlites and nanolites on vesicle walls in natural pink pumice.

From: Havre 2012 pink pumice is evidence of a short-lived, deep-sea, magnetite nanolite-driven explosive eruption

Fig. 2

a Optical stereoscope image of natural pink pumice showing vesicle rims and walls marked by an orange-red staining. b BSE image showing magnetite microlites/nanolites (white) within the pumice glass (orange-yellow), where black spaces correspond to vesicles or void spaces. Note the view of the preserved concave vesicle wall (outlined by green box) that contains abundant magnetite nanolites to microlites. Blue circles highlight magnetite microlites occurring along vesicle walls. The large yellow crystal in the centre of the image is an orthopyroxene microlite. c An enlarged area of the XFM Fe elemental map of the pink raft pumice (Fig. 1i) showing a vesicle lined with numerous pixels with high Fe concentrations (white) interpreted to be magnetite microlites/nanolites. XFM elemental maps resolution is limited to 5 µm.

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