What is the value in mapping the world one micron at a time?

Yesterday Alan Butcher joined us in Conwy to give us a very wide ranging talk about his work of the digital mapping of minerals in a very wide range of contexts. After Scottish field mapping for his PhD to mineralogical work in Australia, and the complex igneous rocks of South Africa, Alan’s current role is Professor for GTK, the Finnish government’s approximate equivalent of the BGS here in the UK. Alan has seen a very wide variety of applications where detailed micron and sub-micron mineralogical analysis can help engineers and other disciplines of science. 

His access to the latest equipment available worldwide for the last few years of his work has lead to such wide ranging analyses as asteroid particles, Moon & Mars rocks for NASA  all the way through to identifying gold and platinum in the Scottish Highlands igneous and metamorphic rocks, to William Smith’s back garden outcrops of oolitic limestone.

   

Alan’s slide deck is    HERE 

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