Although website hosting isn’t too expensive, and I don’t pay myself for the time I enthusiastically spend here updating and improving the site (I view this as “fun” and not as “work”), there are actual significant monetary costs that unfortunately limit what I’m ultimately able to accomplish here. Despite those challenges, I want to keep this website ad-free (advertisements are annoying!), and I also want to limit incorporating any “premium” content here (other than possibly an advanced academic course or two I might develop).

While acquiring new samples to feature does entail some financial outlay, most of the expense comes from the cost of preparing thin sections and the cost of instrument time to do analytical work. To give you an idea of some of these expenses, a single polished thin section comes in at $45 to make, and to examine it with the electron microprobe currently costs approximately $32/hr (this is a fairly reasonable price… some labs charge hundreds of dollar per hour to use their equipment; note, however, that the rate was previously $17/hr and was then increased because usage had gone down in recent months… the reasons for the reduced usage is a different lament, but to raise prices to increase usage wouldn’t seem to make basic economic sense).

To give you an idea of the time involved, a basic five element X-ray map takes around 4 hours; every additional five element set takes an additional 4 hours, and three sets (15 elements in total) usually offers a great snapshot of the mineralogical distributions of key major and minor elements in a sample. Because the total analytical cost is capped at $360/day, for some more complex samples it may actually be cost-effective to look at an additional set of 5 elements; however, in general it would be more worthwhile to instead look at 10 elements in two different thin sections. Needless to say, in either case, add all this up and it can get quite expensive:

Although I’ve made a few X-ray maps already (see the electron microscopy tab), typically I’ll try to save money by concentrating on individual spot analyses. Doing individual analyses is both more cost-effective (it takes anywhere from about two to five hours to examine a single thin section, depending on how complex it is), and provides the quantitative data that ends up in the mineral composition tables. In any case, much of this sample preparation and analytical cost has so far been largely covered by generous contributions from my university research group’s discretionary funding (although in 2016, I had to cover the full cost myself of having 40 thin sections made… ouch! [and in 2018 I again paid for thin sections myself, and my allotted budget for microprobe time dropped to $0]). Being a part of the economic geology group, overall funding can be somewhat cyclical (often dependent on metal prices), and in some years may be a bit healthier than in others. But by and large, the trend in recent years has been that funding is getting more scarce, and this is especially true for non-project-focused general education expenses such as the thin section preparation and analytical costs that are the heart of this website. So while I’m always hopeful for university funding and always appreciative when some trickles down to me, I can’t necessarily rely on it going forward.

And this limitation is unfortunate, because I hope to add lots of new and exciting content in the future (for example, I’d love to add multi-element X-ray maps of all the featured thin sections, and additionally some of the samples might be interesting for ICP-MS trace element or isotopic work). But progress in these directions will depend largely on what funding I can raise, whether it comes in part from the university, in part from me, and/or of course in part from whatever contributions I’m able to raise here.

For your convenience, I’ve made two different donation options available (see links at the top of the page and again below). And for your peace of mind, with each option, donations are handled securely through either PayPal or GoFundMe; I’ll never see your credit card number or any of your private banking information. And donations can be done either via a PayPal account (if you have one), a credit card or a debit card. Depending on user feedback, I may try to offer additional donation options in the future.
 

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DONATION OPTION #1: If you have a PayPal account, you can send donations to me at PayPal.Me/rockPTX.

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DONATION OPTION #2: As a donation alternative, I’ve also set up a GoFundMe page in support of this website. You can find the link at the rockPTX.com project on GoFundMe’s platform. You can use a credit card or debit card with this option.

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NOTE: Although the missions of this website are education and scientific advancement, rockPTX.com is at present not an IRS-recognized tax-exempt organization, so unfortunately your donations are currently not tax-deductible.