JULES VERNE

Jules Verne was a famous French science fiction writer from the early half of the 20th century. He is most famous for his books 20,000 leagues under the sea and Journey to the centre of the Earth. He could be considered a great man by many, but there is no use in researching that fact.
Coal Fire Buchite What is it? Coal Fire Buchite occurs when a layer of coal loacted close to the surface combusts due to a build up of heat and access to oxygen. This causes the surrounding layers to be subjected to massive levels of heat. As a result the overlaying strata would undergo partial fusion, resulting in a black vesicular rock being created that resembles a slag. The coal firing usually last only for a short period, days to weeks, and due to this the slag also cools quickly. The crystals that form are small and can exhibit quench textures such as dendrites in the recrystallised glass. Where my sample from? My sample came from the Bowen Basin. This is a large geological unit that runs through QLD down towards Sydney. But where it forms is not much of an issue, as it usually small scale contact metamorphism that causes the buchite to form. A possibility is that the buchite’s mineralogy is dependant on what the layer was before firing, but as the coal fires are an unusual feature of geology they have not been explored, the answer is unknown. What does it look like? Clump of intertwined and crossing quartz veins with a seemingly massive dark mineral making up the majority of the rock. The rock is hard in places, about a 5 on Mohs’ hardness scale; this is due to the fine crystals structure. This is contrasted with the vesicular gaps in the rock that make it structurally weak. In thin section The black mineral was opaque, in certain lights some strucures can be seen on it. These were botryoidal clumps. (think grapes) The brown mineral looks fiberous, but was hard to determine due to the poor quality of the thin section The quartz crystals were in two sizes. The larger ones were once smaller but due to the metamorphism had combined into lager crystals. The smaller ones would have done the same except that they were held back by impurities in the quartz. What should be in Buchite More common minerals Larnite Ca2SiO4 Merwinite Ca3Mg(SiO4)2 Rankinite Ca3Si2O7 Very rare minerals Bredigite Ca7Mg(SiO4)4 ‘Cyclowollastonite’ CaSiO3 Hatrurite Ca3SiO5 Hibonite CaAl12O19 Lime CaO Esseneite CaFeSiAlO6 Dorrite CaAl12O19 Mullite Al6Si2O13 What should be in Buchite There is a problem with these minerals and that this that many of them are high temperature calc-silicate minerals that can be partially or completely replaced by hydrates when facing metamorphism. This means that I may not actually find any of these typical buchite minerals in my sample. And guess what… I didn’t Instead I found: Quartz Chabazite (Ca-exchanged, dehydrated) This is a type of zeolite (low pressure metamorphic rock) Lithiophorite (Al,Li)MnO2(OH)2 Newberyite MgHPO4(H2O) The brown mineral Goethite FeO(OH) The black mineral Does this make it a buchite? Not sure, it could be but due to the rock not being too revealing in thin section its hard to say The minerals didn’t match but that could be due to two reasons The type of source rock Type of metamorphism
One quirk Jules Verne had was that he would never start writing a story until he knew how it would end. Prior to beginning to write he would plan extensively and date each piece of work he did.
Other famous works by verne include Around the World in Eighty Days.
Jules Verne wrote science fiction for his time and since his writings some objects and events he described have made the conversion over to reality. These include: the balloon, helicopter, Space travel, north and south pole discovery, electrical engine, tank, artifical satellite and a missing link between man and ape.
In his life time Jules Verne wrote a lot of stuff. And most of it was published in his lifetime making him a rich man.

Type of writing	Amount
Novels	more than 54
Short Stories	31
Essays	9
Plays	53
Poems	123