WHAT IS PETROGRAPHY?

Petrography is the microscopic study of rocks, minerals or man-made materials. It is a powerful tool for investigating the composition, microstructure and inter-component relationships of a wide variety of natural and synthetic materials. Used alone, or in combination with other investigative techniques, it can be of tremendous value in many areas of the minerals and construction industries.

Petrological microscopy can be used as a simple descriptive or analytical tool, for example:

identification and quantification of valuable and gangue minerals in ores.

establishing mineral parageneses

establishing degradation mechanisms in concrete

predicting the behavior of minerals during ore processing

assessing the potential stability of concrete aggregates

At Petrolab we combine traditional petrographic and petrological methods with the latest techniques of digital imagery and sophisticated computer-based image processing and analysis.