Section of a quartz thin section under crossed polarizers (a) and evaluation of the diffraction from the µXRF (b). The µXRF shows a silicon signal in the quartz and, depending on the orientation of the quartz grains, a series of diffraction peaks that can be used to separate individual grains. Diagram c) shows that the grain size distribution (in 2D) from the thin section correlates with the grain size distribution from the µXRF data

Figure 3: Section of a quartz thin section under crossed polarizers (a) and evaluation of the diffraction from the µXRF (b). The µXRF shows a silicon signal in the quartz and, depending on the orientation of the quartz grains, a series of diffraction peaks that can be used to separate individual grains. Diagram c) shows that the grain size distribution (in 2D) from the thin section correlates with the grain size distribution from the µXRF data. Source: BGR