Ever wonder how Earth scientists examine rocks? We cut them up and throw them under a microscope ... and then everything seems different. To many people, a rock is just a rock. If anyone has been ...

This micrograph shows plagioclase, a type of feldspar, with a field of view of 2.7 mm. The sample hails from Brazil, and Bernardo Cesare, a geoscientist at the University of Padua, obtained it from a ...