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These backscattered electron images from a scanning electron microscope show some of the features of the slags generated during the 1998 smelting campaign. These samples were examined as part of Gary Thomas' PhD Thesis.
Sample 8.3.
Contact of dense slags below bloom with furnace wall (upper left). Field of view 1.5 mm wide.
Early fayalite, followed by a finer, more Ca-rich fayalite (both bright). Darker material between olivine crystals is very fine dendrites of ?pyroxene in glass. ?Pyroxene too fine for analysis. Black areas are vesicles.
Sample 8.3.
1.3 mm from contact of dense slags below bloom with furnace wall. Field of view 0.45 mm wide.
Early fayalite (bright) with sharp crystal terminations, overlain by Ca-rich fayalite (bright) plus leucite (dark), overlain in turn by magnetite (bright), rhönite (pale grey) and fassaite (mid grey). Remaining pores filled by glass bearing spheroids of native iron (white). Black areas are vesicles.
Sample 8.3.
5 mm from contact of dense slags below bloom with furnace wall. Field of view 0.8 mm wide.
Early fayalite (bright), overlain by leucite (dark)/fayalite (bright) eutectic and by Ca-rich fayalite (bright), overlain in turn by magnetite (bright), rhönite (pale grey) and glass bearing ?fassaite and spheroids of native iron.
Sample 8.6.
Trickle of slag from tapping arch. Field of view 0.45 mm wide.
Wüstite (white) dendrites, followed by large fayalite (bright) laths, followed in turn by a much finer second generation of olivine with 70% kirschsteinite.