Thursday, March 4, 2021 • ThE BuLLETIN
GO! MAGAZINE • PAGE 17
Submitted photo
This extraterrestrial meteorite was found in Aouinet Legraa, Algeria. It came from the Asteroid Belt in our solar system and is classified as a eucrite. Such classifications mean that certain asteroids came
from the same parent body after it broke up. Meteorites are evidence that at one time there were likely more planets in the solar system, but they collided and broke into pieces.
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After that project, Irving sent Buckland a
thin sliver of rock to shoot for a conference.
Buckland is a landscape photographer who
applies what he knows to photographing
paper-thin — to the point of being translu-
cent — meteorites using the special micro-
scope and camera system he devised, and
glass microscope slides made by Spectrum
Petrographics, a specialty lab in Vancouver,
Washington. Special filters bring out mag-
nificent, vibrant colors — the word “kalei-
doscopic” was used during the interview —
blown up on large panels up to 8 feet high
by 17.5 feet wide.
The seed for “Cosmic Microscapes” was
planted after the two men stopped by the
museum on their way back to Washington
from Review Santa Fe, a juried portfolio re-
view event in New Mexico. There, someone
recommended they speak to Christina Cid,
director of programs at the High Desert
Museum.
“On the way back from that, we stopped
by here and spoke to her, showed her some
of the prints of the thin section,” Irving said.
“It was (then) that she said, ‘Well, is there
any way that you can make the connection
between these extraterrestrial rocks and the
igneous rocks on our end?’”
“Our association from the beginning
has been meteorites,” Buckland explained.
“When we met with Christina, we tied in
the Oregon geology by basically saying,
‘There’s lava all over the solar system. Let’s
bring that in and tie it in to Oregon.’”
“So this exhibit is a melding of those to-
gether,” Irving said. “It has local terrestrial
stuff, and (we) sort of compare and contrast
with sort of similar, but different in detail,
rocks on the moon and Mars.”
Most of his career, Irving has had a par-
ticular research focus on igneous rock.
When he began studying meteorites 20
years ago, he gravitated toward meteorites
that were created through volcanic forces
similar to those that create igneous rock on
Earth.
“Igneous rocks are ones that crystallize
from molten rock that’s formed inside a
planet,” he explained. “The process … hap-
pens on the Earth, it happens on Mars and
it happens on the moon.”
“There are other types of meteorites that
we’re not dealing with at all in this exhibit,”
Irving said.
“But we are dealing with the ones that are
like the igneous rocks on Earth. … Many of
the molten rocks that are formed deep in-
side the Earth, and are buoyant and come
to the surface, through these lava flows or
explosive eruptions, that happens on other
planets too.”
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David Jasper: 541-383-0349, djasper@bendbulletin.com
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Sharon Preston