Class help (images)

collitchboy · #1 12/08/2007, 10:24 PM

Hello all. I am taking an SEM class this semester and was hoping to get some help. Part of the class is identifying what we have taken pictures of and when you are looking at random samples of live rock that can become difficult.

Below are some of the images I have and was hoping for a general idea of what they are:

These two were taken from a freshwater sample:

Any help/thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

collitchboy · #2 12/09/2007, 06:38 AM

Any thoughts?

seansod · #3 12/09/2007, 10:05 AM

No clue but they sure are cool. Thanks for sharing.

Vitaly · #4 12/09/2007, 10:20 AM

If you want ID's then you are gonna have to seek out an academic marine ecologist. The images are striking, but structures at that scale are gonna be foreign to 99.9% of general hobbyists.

The specimens you show are on the order of something between the size of a blood cell (~10 microns) or sperm (~50 microns)...something that most people in this hobby never, never see by naked eye.

If you do figure it out...be sure to post the info...I am sure many of us would be curious to know.

collitchboy · #5 12/09/2007, 06:30 PM

Yea I thought it might not be general knowledge but it was worth a shot

I just wish I knew a marine ecologist. The closest my school has, that I am aware of, is a professor the specializes in sharks and more specifically the organisms that parasitize them.

webbstock · #6 12/10/2007, 11:53 AM

Hmmmm...I'm no doctor, but I play one at work.

I think the second image down looks like a marine algae known as Emiliania huxleyi which are a coccolithophorids or something similar.

Fourth picture down *may* be a diatom, however it doesn't look quite right.

The last two pictures look like an egg sac or spore structure that has "hatched", but that is just a guess.