Although Raman spectroscopy long has been recognized in material science and solid state physics as a powerful tool for the study of carbonaceous materials (CM), it has barely been used to study "graphite" in samples of geological interest. The overall goal is to evaluate the usefulness of laser Raman microprobe (LRM) spectroscopy to characterize naturally occuring CM. For the purpose of LRM analysis, several suites of progressively metamorphosed CM have been obtained, most of which already have undergone other analyses, such as by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The intention is to develop a routine LRM methodogy 1) to provide relatively rapid evaluation of the degree of crystallinity of "graphite" and its compositional deviations from pure carbon and 2) to be as quantitative as possible in characterizing the kind of carbon. The results will be important in understanding the history of carbon-bearing rock.
