Why is a Mineralogists job so Important Generally and in Mine Exploration?
Mineralogists play a massive part in the exploration of a mine, this is so because when examining a low mine ore, procedures by Mineralogists need to take place in order to indicate weather the mine will be a failure or a success. The procedure in which helps identify which granite will succeed is a little bit of a thin-section preparation at the beginning of an exploration program. A thin-section preparation is a laboratory preparation of a rock, mineral, soil, pottery, bones or even metal samples for use with a polarizing petrographic microscope, electron microscope and electron microphobe. A thin sliver of rock is cut from the sample with a diamond saw and ground optically flat. It is then mounted on a glass slide and then ground smooth using progressively finer abrasive grit until the sample is only 30 micrometers thick. The method involved using the Michel-Lévy interference colour chart. Typically quartz is used as the gauge to determine thickness as it is one of the most abundant minerals. It takes a lot of power and equipment to do more crushing work, which leads to higher costs and if the mining operation proceeds without mineralogists approval then economic consequences are to be faced.
What Does this Field of Science do on an Average day at the Mine?
Work is quite varied as a mineralogist. At some stages they can be travelling around visiting a mining site or they could be back in the office working on collected samples that are ready to be analysed. The time spent in the office during the day is quite simple for properly trained mineralogists. This consists of reflected and transmitted light microscopy, electron microscopy or report writing around that topic. The time spent out at the mining sites vary according to what site the mineralogists are at work on. Working out in the fields gives a mineralogists an opportunity to be immersed in different cultures and environments, mostly referring to locations barely known and unlikely to see in a regular human life.