Taking Automated Mineralogy from the Lab into the Field

SEM-EDS based automated mineralogy is widely used in the geological industries in order to study mineral deposits, for mine planning and for oil and gas reservoir analysis. It is also being increasingly used in academic settings to study phase distributions and the compositions of bulk samples. Several solutions integrating SEM and EDS hardware with dedicated software are available on the market. Systems have been installed at oil drilling sites and mining sites employing ruggedized SEM designs to withstand transport requirements and local environmental conditions. However, none of the automated mineralogy systems available today are truly portable and therefore of little use to the field geologist. In other application areas such as the forensics and biological sciences, however, small footprint tabletop or desktop SEMs are becoming increasingly popular [1].