Automated Quantitative Mineralogy Applied to Metamorphic Rocks

• Main Authors: Nynke Keulen, Sebastian Næsby Malkki, Shaun Graham
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-01-01
• Series: Minerals
• Subjects: automated quantitative mineralogy (aqm); scanning electron microscopy; zeiss mineralogic; fiskenæsset complex; feret angle; element concentration map; visualization; mineral association; bulk composition; grain size
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/10/1/47

The ability to apply automated quantitative mineralogy (AQM) on metamorphic rocks was investigated on samples from the Fiskenæsset complex, Greenland. AQM provides the possibility to visualize and quantify microstructures, minerals, as well as the morphology and chemistry of the investigated samples. Here, we applied the ZEISS Mineralogic software platform as an AQM tool, which has integrated matrix corrections and full quantification of energy dispersive spectrometry data, and therefore is able to give detailed chemical information on each pixel in the AQM mineral maps. This has been applied to create mineral maps, element concentration maps, element ratio maps, mineral association maps, as well as to morphochemically classify individual minerals for their grain shape, size, and orientation. The visualization of metamorphic textures, while at the same time quantifying their textures, is the great strength of AQM and is an ideal tool to lift microscopy from the qualitative to the quantitative level.