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When trying to understand the geology of a region – be that as a mining prospect, as an area that will be built or for more academic purposes, there is often a need to analyse many samples in order to determine the variability of that area. With high throughput, automated feature analysis by SEM & EDS this can be easily achieved.
A large number of factors are involved in determining what a rock is. These include information on the composition of the various minerals that are present (and therefore the bulk composition of the whole rock), the relative proportions of those minerals and information on the texture of the rock – E.g. grain sizes or any dominant elongation in the grains. Furthermore, this information is often required from not one but many samples.
With such a large amount of information required it is often not practical to manually analyse each specimen. Furthermore, manual analyses can be subject to bias and, in reality, are unlikely to be numerous enough to provide a sound statistical basis for interpretations.
A powerful alternative is the use of automated feature analysis by SEM & EDS – a process which automates the detection of and morphological and compositional analysis of mineral grains and classifies them to your requirements.
The manual characterisation of cut sections of geological materials can be a laborious, time consuming process which can be very subjective. AZtecFeature, used in conjunction with large area Ultim Max SDDs can automate this process enabling complex mineralogies to be characterised quickly and accurately.
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