Manufacturing procedures and their impact on glass morphology will be covered. A variety of natural sources of glass will be introduced, and their characteristic morphologies studied.
Refractive index measurements will be treated in detail, including immersion using dispersion staining and variation of both temperature and wavelength. Scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray analysis will be used for semi-quantitative elemental analysis of glass fragments.
Advantages and limitations of the method will be determined, with an emphasis on the reliability of the data and the interpretations. Given the data from the light and electron microscopy, the added value of other analytical methods will be considered.