MINERAL IDENTIFICATION BY X-RAY DIFFRACTION (XRD) OF CORE SAMPLES FROM 5 POPULAR ALASKAN MINING SITES

Although Alaska is well known for it’s gold mines made popular by the Gold Rush in 1870, it is also abundant in many other precious metals.

In addition to gold, these resources also include silver, copper, zinc, lead and platinum. Core samples from Hatchers Pass, Red Dog Mine, Tech Pogo, Emerick and Greens Creek are analyzed using Rigaku's MiniFlex 600 benchtop XRD unit for mineral identification. With a new high speed detector, XRD data is collected with 15 minute scans that normally would take several hours. Quantitative analysis using Rietveld determines the relative abundance of each phase and results are compared to USGS published reports for each site.