A slice of rock mounted on a glass slide and ground to a thickness of about 0.03 mm, thin enough for light to pass through many kinds of minerals.
A thin translucent slice of a substance mounted on a glass microscope beneath a cover slip. The substance can be a rock, mineral, bone, concrete, etc.
A 3/100-mm-thick slice of rock that can be examined with a petrographic microscope.
a layer of the rock cut so thin that the light from a microscope shines through, allowing us to see the structure of the rock
a very thin slice of a rock which has been glued to a microscope slide
a very thin slice through a piece of pottery which is mounted on a slide and polished until it is thin enough to be translucent
A very thin sample of rock or ceramic, ground to a standard thickness of 30 mm (sections used in conservation may differ). Thin sections are examined using polarized light microscopy. The standard thickness simplifies identification of components.
In optical mineralogy and petrography, a thin section is a laboratory preparation of a rock, mineral or soil sample for use with a polarizing petrographic microscope. A thin sliver of rock is cut from the sample with a diamond saw or laser, mounted on a glass slide and then ground smooth using progressively finer abrasive grit until the sample is only 0.03 mm thick.