BSE Image of a pseudotachylyte from the ~900 million year old Pofadder Shear Zone, South Africa. The light gray flower shapes are clusters of epidote which overgrow the original texture. The primary pseudotachylyte microtexture is the patchy dark gray/medium gray background in most of the photo. This is a typical appearance for pseudotachylytes which have formed in granitic rocks and have crystallized. The darkest gray are quartz crystals and the slightly lighter gray are feldspar. If you look closely you can see thin ragged pores – I believe these are from mica crystals which have been removed – either by alteration of the rock before we sampled it, or possibly during polishing when the slide was prepared for microprobe observations. Some larger grains (e.g. medium gray fragment in lower left corner, large grain at upper right) are survivor grains of feldspar. A vein of epidote runs diagonally across the lower right corner.