The LaserLab is an unique research facility located in the Department of Geological Sciences, Queen's University. It was established by Prof. T. H. Pearce and has about $300,000 worth of advanced optical and related equipment, including laser inference microscope, lasers for colour holography, Nomarski differential contrast microscope, equipment for photomicrography, and digital recording of images, as well as equipment for image analysis and enhancement.

The research conducted by the workers over the past decade in the Laser Lab is novel and has produced unexpected results. For example, recent work shows that a new imaging technique developed by the author can determine daily growth rate in modern corals (Risk and Pearce, Nature, v358, Aug. 1992). On the subject of crystal zoning, Higman and Pearce, have discovered spiral patterns in "phase space" of plagioclase zoning patterns proving the oscillatory zoning cannot be random or stochastic but must be deterministic. More than 3 variables appear necessary to explain this deterministic chaos. More recent work by Pearce, (1996) indicates that Neural Networks are potentially useful in dealing with pseudo-random data of nonlinear dynamical problems.

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