Detailed EBSD Study of a Bivalve SEhell
Introduction
The structure of natural shell samples has for many
years been of significant interest, not only to researchers
in the biological sciences, but also to material scientists
[1]. This is primarily because the shells often have
physical properties far exceeding those of their
constituent minerals: in particular the mother of pearl
structure, or “nacre”, consists of small, interlocking
tablets of aragonite (orthorhombic CaCO3) separated
by organic matrix membranes (Fig. 1).