I'm not a geologist, but I did do some geochemistry related research for my PhD!
Super cool that you looked at the backsplash under a microscope! Also, having gone to both geological and chemistry conferences, I can say without a doubt that the geologists are a more fun crowd!
Our kitchen severely needs a remodel too, but it's just not in the budget right now. We'll be living with this for the next year or two at least:
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(Sorry for potato-quality image)
It's not great, but is a vast improvement over the kitchen we had in our rental, which was basically the size of an RV kitchen. Appliances are all new, so that's nice also.