{"id":50539,"date":"2024-08-27T09:17:09","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T08:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=50539"},"modified":"2024-08-27T09:17:09","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T08:17:09","slug":"revolutionising-ore-body-analysis-with-elemissions-ecore-libs-drill-core-scanner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/revolutionising-ore-body-analysis-with-elemissions-ecore-libs-drill-core-scanner\/50539\/","title":{"rendered":"Revolutionising ore body analysis with ELEMISSION\u2019s ECORE LIBS drill core scanner"},"content":{"rendered":"
Exploration, mining, and mineral processing account for a significant proportion of global GDP. Comprehensive and robust ore body analysis is information that is necessary for determining the viability and profitability of an ore deposit.<\/p>\n
Characterisation of the mineralogy of a deposit is a reliable way to improve ore body knowledge through the validation and refinement of genetic models, which can then support exploration efforts and lead to new discoveries.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, a combination of techniques is used to understand the mineralogy of an ore deposit better. Thin sections for representative lithologies throughout a deposit are prepared and characterised by a geologist using a petrographic microscope. These interpretations generally need to be verified and further extended with secondary and even tertiary methods, such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) or electron probe microanalysis (EPMA).<\/p>\n
For more in-depth studies, trace element and isotopic analyses can be conducted using methods such as laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) or secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) to understand compositional zoning or timing of mineralisation better.<\/p>\n
In more recent years, automated mineralogy solutions have been developed that utilise technologies such as SEM-EDS and X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) to generate mineralogical maps of thin sections or epoxy resin blocks.<\/p>\n
While these techniques are useful for better understanding the mineralogy of an ore deposit, the scale of these analyses is quite small and limited by sampling. With a standard thin section size of 27 x 46 mm, a large quantity is required to produce a dataset that is representative of an entire deposit.<\/p>\n
Additionally, smaller sample sizes increase the likelihood of biased sampling, which may induce sampling error, according to sampling theory. These traditional analyses are often quite costly and time-consuming (both in terms of analysis time and required sample preparation), further limiting how much of a deposit can be truly characterised. In an attempt to overcome some of these challenges, commercial drill core scanners using infrared hyperspectral imaging (IR-HSI) have become increasingly popular over the last decade to provide mineralogy on a larger scale.<\/p>\n
These machines are capable of providing large amounts of textural and mineralogical information quickly and at a relatively low cost. While this significantly reduces scalability issues that are associated with traditional methods, there are many limitations to this technology that result in reduced data quality. Metal oxides, quartz, and sulphide minerals are not spectrally active with IR-HSI and, therefore, cannot be distinguished from each other.<\/p>\n
In addition, the spot size of each analysis is ~1mm, resulting in mixed results in fine-grained lithologies. Infrared hyperspectral imaging (IR-HSI) is a molecular spectroscopy technique characterised by the presence of multiple spectral interferences, resulting in many minerals being indistinguishable from each other.<\/p>\n
ECORE (Fig. 1), manufactured by ELEMISSION Inc. (Montr\u00e9al, QC, Canada), is a fully automated, high-speed, commercial laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) commercial drill core scanner that rapidly provides automated mineralogical and chemical assays while providing high-quality and accurate information.<\/p>\n