The Society of Reflective Personalities - Collotelinite

The Perfectionist Who Hates Bad Illumination

Personality:
Collotelinite lives for consistency. It checks the lamp alignment before entering a room and refuses to shine until calibrated properly. Known for its impeccable polish and disdain for uneven illumination, it’s the maceral you can always rely on—unless someone bumps the stage.

Scientist’s Note:
Collotelinite is a maceral of the vitrinite group. It derives from the parenchymatous and woody tissues of roots, stems, and leaves composed of cellulose and lignin, originating from both herbaceous and arborescent plants. During peat formation, these tissues undergo decomposition and chemical alteration, followed by geochemical gelification (vitrinitization) that obliterates the original cellular structure and produces a homogeneous material.

Under reflected light, collotelinite appears grey to light grey, smooth, and uniform, with a more or less structureless texture. Its reflectance is commonly about 0.05–0.10 % Rr higher than that of the corresponding collodetrinite, though the difference diminishes with increasing rank. Collotelinite does not fluoresce and exhibits little or no bireflectance except in anthracitic and meta-anthracitic stages, where weak anisotropy may develop along residual cell traces. The fluorescence intensity of vitrinite macerals passes through a minimum near 0.5 % Rr, reaches a maximum around 1.0–1.1 % Rr (depending on excitation wavelength), and then declines with further maturation. The reflectance of collotelinite is widely used to determine the rank of coal and dispersed organic matter in sediments.

When collotelinite looks off, chances are your microscope needs attention, your your polishing is bad — or you’re looking at the wrong maceral.

More information here:

ICCP, 1998. The new vitrinite classification (ICCP System 1994). Fuel 77, 349-358.