Seminars Archive

FTIR spectroscopy and Imaging of volatiles in minerals

Abstract
In this presentation I will describe the recent applications of micro-infrared spectroscopy in Earth Sciences. I will address, in particular, (1) the use of the novel FPA-FTIR methods in characterizing the zoning and speciation of H and C in a variety of geological materials, and (2) modern advances in HT-FTIR spectroscopy. Regarding (1), our results done during the last decade show that the use of FTIR imaging is effective in detecting the zoning of volatiles and their speciation (configurational change of structurally-bound molecules) across the studied samples during the crystal growth; such a features is not accessible with other micro-analytical techniques. Our results also show that FTIR imaging is also mandatory in diffusion experiments where the distribution of the target molecules may deviate significantly from the expected pattern. Regarding (2), recent work at HT shows that significant changes in molar absorption coefficients may occur for increasing T, a feature that needs to be properly defined if data collected in situ are being used for dehydration experiments.