Cathodoluminescence and Rare Earth Minerals Exploration
These CL photos are from the special issue of Elements, dedicated to Rare Earth Elements. Volume 8, No. 5, October 2012.
Cathodoluminescence is a very important tool in the study of rare earth minerals. Dr. Anthony N. Mariano has pioneered its use for many years and especially when coupled with spectral measurements of the CL emission. Elsewhere on this web site photo gallery is an example of the spectra of CL emissions from a rare earth-doped synthetic calcium fluorite.
The first example is a CL image of xenotime and associated minerals in peralkaline granite.
Here is a labeled version below. Click on the photo to see a larger version.
This first example is from the paper by:
Chakhmouradian, A. R. and Zaitsev, A. N., Rare Earth Mineralization in Igneous Rocks: Sources and Processes. pp 347-353. Figure 5C.
Second example is from Mariano, A. N. and Mariano, A., Jr. , Rare Earth Mining and Exploration in North America, pp. 369-376. Figure 3C.
This is a Cathodoluminescence micrograph of Sm3+ - activated apatite (light pink) in a dolomite carbonatite matrix (field of view = 2.5 mm).
All three photographs were taken by Dr. Anthony N. Mariano.
