The Marine Science Center at the University of Basra organized a course entitled “How to Prepare and Use Clay Mineral Slides.”

The course aimed to develop the practical and scientific competence of participants in preparing and analyzing clay mineral samples, which is an essential skill in several geological and industrial disciplines.

The course, which was lectured by Dr. Zainab Abdul-Razzaq Hamid from the Marine Science Center and a number of researchers, included mastering the precise preparation of slides and teaching participants the practical steps for preparing high-quality clay sample slides suitable for analysis under a microscope or with X-ray diffraction (XRD) devices. (XRD). This includes separating clay particles by sedimentation according to particle size and mastering the method of preparing oriented and non-oriented slides, which is crucial for identifying clay minerals and chemically and thermally treating samples (such as glycerol saturation or heating) to distinguish between different types of minerals.

The link between preparation and diagnosis was addressed to enable participants to understand how the quality of slide preparation affects the accuracy of subsequent analytical results, particularly using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and to develop the ability to interpret the data and patterns resulting from the analyses to extract information about the type and properties of clay minerals.

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