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Minerals
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Thin Sections: The Past Serving The Future
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Thin Sections: The Past Serving The Future

A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X). This special issue belongs to the section "Crystallography and Physical Chemistry of Minerals & Nanominerals".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2025 | Viewed by 3749

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Lluís Casas

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Guest Editor
Department de Geologia, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Edifici C, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Catalonia, Spain
Interests: archaeometry; crystallography; magnetism; petrography; physical–chemical characterization; X-ray microdiffraction; Raman microscopy (RM); magnetic nanoparticles; 3D-printing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Roberta Di Febo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department de Geologia, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Edifici C, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Catalonia, Spain
Interests: archaeometry; petrography of archaeological materials; pottery; glazes; marbles; X-ray microdiffraction; Raman microscopy (RM)
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The introduction of thin-section (~30 μm in thickness) samples to mineralogical studies occurred alongside the development of the petrographic microscope in the mid-19th century. In optical mineralogy and petrography, the use of the polished thin sections is very common within the study of a wide variety of materials, including rocks, minerals, soils, slag, mudbrick, and clays. However, in some scientific circles both thin sections and the petrographic microscope are sometimes perceived as archaic tools, not yet fully obsolete but far from cutting-edge science.

Tools of the past? Nothing could be further from the truth. Over the last ten years, the use of thin sections in combination with hyper-spectral elemental, molecular, and structural methods has revealed new ways of examining samples. The capabilities of these techniques can be significantly improved when combined with thin sections. The use of thin-section enhances data quality with easier correlations between data produced by different techniques and improved control over measured sample regions. Other sample supports such as cross-sections are easier to produce, but it is often difficult to see what is being measured.

Originating in the early to mid-19th century and specifically used to investigate rocks in the field of geosciences, thin sections are a sample support that can be applied in many other fields, artistic (stone, ceramics, wood, pigments), construction (concrete, mortar), and technological among others. In this Special Issue, we will collate papers that demonstrate, in a wide variety of contexts and domains, the versatility and usefulness of thin sections in characterizing natural or artificial crystalline materials. We are particularly interested in combinations of this sample support with local probe analytical equipment.

Dr. Lluís Casas
Dr. Roberta Di Febo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Minerals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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18 pages, 15262 KB  
Article
Thin-Section Petrography in the Use of Ancient Ceramic Studies
by David Ben-Shlomo
Minerals 2025, 15(9), 984; https://doi.org/10.3390/min15090984 - 16 Sep 2025
Viewed by 378
Abstract
The potential of thin-section petrography for the analysis of ancient ceramic materials, such as pottery vessels, figurative objects and building materials made of fired clay, was already recognized during the 19th century, but its use has become more intensive during the past 80 [...] Read more.
The potential of thin-section petrography for the analysis of ancient ceramic materials, such as pottery vessels, figurative objects and building materials made of fired clay, was already recognized during the 19th century, but its use has become more intensive during the past 80 years. Since pottery is the most common and typologically datable artifact in archaeological excavations from the pottery Neolithic period onwards (some 7000–8000 years ago), the analysis of pottery, including its composition, is a central component of archaeological research. As ceramic materials are made of fired clay, which in turn is procured from soils, weathered rocks and geological formations, the mineralogical composition of the ceramic artifacts represents the clay sources. The study of the mineralogical and rock fragment composition of thin sections of ancient ceramic artifacts can yield the characterization of the clay and soil type and thus the geographic location or area of the clay source. Since in antiquity we assume clay was not precured from a distance of more than one day’s walk from the production site (‘site catchment area’), the production location can be detected as well. Thus, petrographic analysis can identify the trade of artifacts and commodities (if the ceramics are containers) in antiquity, which can shed light on political and cultural links and trade between ancient societies and their economic and social structure. In addition, since clay was often treated by ancient potters to improve its quality (levigation, clay mixing, addition of temper), technological aspects of the production sequence (chaîne opératoire) can also be acquired by petrographic analysis. Today, petrographic analysis is part of many standard studies of ancient pottery. While it is an old and relatively ‘low tech’ method, the accessibility of the equipment needed and its high analytic potential maintains its important and common position in archaeological research. This article describes the method and its analytical potential from the archaeological point of view and briefly mentions several archaeological case studies exemplifying its wide and diversified potential in the study of ancient ceramics in past decades. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thin Sections: The Past Serving The Future)
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18 pages, 4138 KB  
Article
Classification of Thin-Section Rock Images Using a Combined CNN and SVM Approach
by İlhan Aydın, Taha Kubilay Şener, Ayşe Didem Kılıç and Hüseyin Derviş
Minerals 2025, 15(9), 976; https://doi.org/10.3390/min15090976 - 15 Sep 2025
Viewed by 421
Abstract
The accurate classification of rocks is crucial for applications such as earthquake prediction, resource exploration, and geological analysis. Traditional methods rely on expert examination of thin-section images under a microscope, making the process time-consuming and prone to errors. Recent advancements in deep learning [...] Read more.
The accurate classification of rocks is crucial for applications such as earthquake prediction, resource exploration, and geological analysis. Traditional methods rely on expert examination of thin-section images under a microscope, making the process time-consuming and prone to errors. Recent advancements in deep learning have emerged as a powerful tool for automated rock classification; however, distinguishing between similar rock types such as sedimentary, metamorphic, and magmatic rocks remains a challenge. This study proposes a novel hybrid convolutional neural network (CNN) approach that combines the strengths of VGG16 and EfficientNetV2 architectures for the classification of thin-section rock images. The model, developed using the Feature-Selected Hybrid Network (FSHNet), demonstrates significant improvements over individual models, achieving a 5% increase in accuracy compared to Efficient-NetV2B0 and a 9% increase compared to VGG16. By employing the ReliefF algorithm for feature selection and Support Vector Machines (SVMs) for classification, the model further reduces the dimensionality of the feature space, enhancing computational efficiency. The proposed model has been applied to two different rock datasets. The first dataset consists of 2634 images, categorized into sedimentary, metamorphic, and magmatic rock classes. Additionally, the approach was tested on a second dataset comprising petrographic microfacies images, demonstrating its effectiveness in multiclass geological structure classification. Validation on both datasets shows that the proposed method outperforms popular deep learning models and previous studies, achieving a 3% increase in accuracy. These results highlight that the proposed approach provides a robust and efficient solution for automated rock classification, offering significant advancements for geological research and real-world applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thin Sections: The Past Serving The Future)
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26 pages, 7883 KB  
Article
Technosol Micromorphology Reveals the Early Pedogenesis of Abandoned Rare Earth Element Mining Sites Undergoing Reclamation in South China
by Françoise Watteau, Jean Louis Morel, Chang Liu, Yetao Tang and Hermine Huot
Minerals 2025, 15(5), 514; https://doi.org/10.3390/min15050514 - 14 May 2025
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 679
Abstract
The process of anthropogenic pedogenesis has necessarily become an important aspect of the study of today’s soils. The sustainable reclamation or remediation of soils degraded by industrial or mining activities is currently of great interest worldwide. In this field, the study of thin [...] Read more.
The process of anthropogenic pedogenesis has necessarily become an important aspect of the study of today’s soils. The sustainable reclamation or remediation of soils degraded by industrial or mining activities is currently of great interest worldwide. In this field, the study of thin soil sections can provide relevant answers, particularly to questions concerning the evolution of these soils under the impact of reclamation practices. Here, we describe an experiment to reclaim former rare earth element mining sites in China using organic soil amendments and plantations of a local fiber plant, Boehmeria nivea. Two years after the start of the experiment, a study of soil structure, considered as an indicator of soil biofunctioning, was carried out on the different plots, supplemented by monitoring of physico-chemical properties. Morphological (light microscopy) and analytical (SEM-EDX, µ-XRF) characterization of thin sections allowed us to pinpoint some pedological processes as aggregation with particular reference to the contribution of biological factors and mineral species, highlighting the impact of the practices implemented. Using a soil micromorphology approach enabled us to track the rapid evolution of the early stages of pedogenesis of these Technosols and to provide insight into the potential for reclamation of these mined sites in the future. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thin Sections: The Past Serving The Future)
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