A New Method for obtaining Thin Plane Parallel Sections of Mineralized Specimens

Abstract

NOWADAYS a number of micro-methods (for example, X-ray and interference microscopy, and isotope techniques) are used for quantitative analyses of mineralized biological tissues. These methods have a resolution which allows analyses at or below the cellular scale. Difficulties in preparing the biological material have so far been a limiting factor in the application of the methods. An ideal specimen is a thin, plane parallel tissue section with a known thickness within the region 10–100µ. In order to prepare such sections, blocks are generally ground down to a desirable thickness, but all such methods so far used possess serious disadvantages: they do not allow a continuous control of the thickness during the grinding procedure, and wedge-shaped sections or fragments of sections are often obtained. These difficulties prompted us to seek a method for preparing ground sections based on lapping technique.