Limbergite thin section

First, my apologies to my German friends. I haven’t been to the southern part of Germany, so I don’t have any first-hand knowledge of the area and am only able to relay the information I found online.

In the Baden-Wurttemberg area of Southern Germany, there is a geological feature called the Lahn Depressions. The Lahn is a river and is a tributary to the Rhine. It flows through various valleys formed by tectonic faults in the earth’s crust, some of which are still moving.

Most rocks in the area were originally sediments, although they had been deformed and metamorphosed in later geologic periods. There are also volcanic rocks that have been linked to very early volcanic activity, and to a mantle plume that uplifted the entire region over the last few hundred thousand years.

In some cases, the limestone intermingled with the volcanic rocks and transformed into marble. In areas near the Kaiserstuhl, the lava solidified into igneous rocks. Overall, the hot lava melted the minerals contained in the sediments and cooled very slowly underground, allowing large crystals to grow within the rocks. An unusual feature of these rocks is that the magma seems to contain more carbon than silica, so the rock tends to contain different types of minerals than you usually see in volcanic rock.

This slide contains a thin section of a rock type known as Limburgite from the Kaiserstuhl area. It is a dark colored volcanic rock that resembles basalt. This area is known for rare minerals, and many crystals can be found in this sample. The crystals are typically olivine and augite, and the color of the augite varies from brown to violet. The crystal shapes tend to be columnar, and six sided.

That being said, I did a little web search on crystal formation for this post and found a whole bunch of sites devoted to crystal healing (Yeah, I’m easily distracted LOL). I thought, what the hell, I’ve had a touch of a cold lately, maybe my aura needs a good scrubbing.

According to the websites an important part of using crystals to heal your aura is that healing crystals are supposed to soak up negative energy, so they need to be cleaned before use. Apparently, that can be easily done by soaking the crystals in holy water. Also suggested is a moon bath, letting them sit outside at night under the light of the full moon. Speaking soothing words is also supposed to help, and since this rock sample is from Germany, I suppose it would best be done in its native language…

So, if you happen to drive by my house tonight and see me laying in the yard with this microscope slide full of columnar crystals soaking in holy water squarely in the middle of my forehead, staring at the full moon and slowly repeating German phrases from a language learning CD, it’s only me trying to get rid of this cold.