Gold price surge adds glitter to tarnished miners
Gold miners are generating cash, boosting dividends and announcing plans to buy back shares.
The Queensland University of Technology announced that it has recently installed AXT’s TESCAN TIMA automated mineralogy system, which provides high-speed, high-throughput mineralogical analysis using multiple EDS detectors that work in unison with a high-resolution field emission gun scanning electron microscope.
“Sophisticated software enables users to automatically characterize multiple geological samples. In doing so, it meets the requirements of both academic researchers and commercial mining companies involved in exploration geology and process metallurgy,” a media statement issued by QUT and AXT reads.
According to the brief, the software allows for high-speed mapping; visualizing and quantifying petrological properties such as alteration, contact zones, fractures, exsolution structures, deformation recrystallization and mapping distribution; producing liberation analyses to better understand the ore in the streams of a concentrator with mineralogy, mineral associations, grain size, particle size and statistics; generating sophisticated particle analysis and viewing tools with accurate particle and field stitching capabilities, among other functionalities.
This is the sixth of such systems that exist in Australia and QUT said the idea of hosting it is to work closely with industry and government bodies to characterize geological materials and massively increase the workflow for its labs’ metallurgy and geological projects.
