Quantitative, high sensitivity, high resolution, nuclear microprobe imaging of fluids, melts and minerals

Samples of fluids and melts trapped and preserved as inclusions in growing minerals or healed fractures provide unique windows on a range of geological processes from mantle melting and metasomatism through to economic ore formation and remobilization. Recent advances in nuclear microprobe (NMP) technology at the CSIRO provide powerful tools for the study of these inclusions and associated mineral assemblages. These tools include a new NMP designed for high resolution and high sensitivity, PIXE analytical methods for quantitative imaging and analysis, and simultaneous PIGE imaging. The quantitative imaging and analysis methods are based on the dynamic analysis approach, which generates a fast matrix transform for projection of list-mode PIXE data onto pure elemental images. Recent advances provide rapid pixel-by-pixel correction for matrix and absorption effects in different (mineral) compositions across the image area to yield true quantitative images. These methods are combined in a software package called GeoPIXE II.