Olivewood serving board with Mineral Thin Section Photo sealed in resin

Beautiful organic shape olivewood serving board designed with a thin section mineral photograph of twinned feldspar and blocky biotite showing birds-eye extinction. The photograph was taken by my sister Sue during her career as a geologist. Here's how Sue described the process of taking the photos:

After cutting and roughly trimming with a diamond tipped saw the rock is slowly cut, ground and then polished to a thickness of 0.03mm (30µm). Using resin to hold this incredibly thin slice of rock onto a glass slide the constituent minerals are now ready to be viewed under a polarising microscope. The diagnostic colors produced by projecting various wavelengths of light through the rock sliver, in conjunction with mineral shape and its association with other minerals are used to determine the mineral type. The diagnostic colors and shape of the mineral can also tell the experienced petrologist the approximate chemical composition of the mineral.

The photograph has been applied to the olivewood board using an adhesive transfer process, and then the artwork is sealed with several layers of clear food-safe resin.