Practical application of Portable XRF in Mineral Exploration

A copy of the paper "Practical Application of Portable XRF in Mineral Exploration" can be found in Volume 61 of Advances in X-ray Analysis in mid-2018, the proceedings of the 66th Annual Conference on Applications of X-ray Analysis (Denver X-ray Conference) held in Big Sky, Montana in 2017.

This contribution discusses practical aspects of applying portable XRF (pXRF) analysis in mineral exploration, with a case study investigating the collection of pXRF geochemical data from diamond drill core for several porphyry Cu and Mo deposits in British Columbia and Alaska. The paper describes the fundamental differences in obtaining pXRF data for qualitative or quantitative analysis, and demonstrates how precision and accuracy vary depending on the style of copper mineralisation.