LAUSR

Analysis of geological materials has advanced substantially in the past decade, with the introduction of automated scanning electron microscope (SEM) based solutions such as QEMSCAN and MLA for mineralogy mapping and the development of the use of microCT systems for Digital Rock and mining applications. However, critical gaps in geological microanalysis still exist. For one, trace elements or minor elements within a mineral of similar chemistries (e.g. below 3% weight of gold in pyrite) are challenging to detect in the SEM-based mineralogy approaches [1], which is problematic for finding rare earth elements and for exploration of “invisible gold”. For microCT approaches, resolution limitations can prevent accurate determination of composition – as grayscale levels of regions of interest are influenced by both mineralogy and the presence of porosity [2].