Attard's Mineral Laboratory

05/25/2024

We are still running samples for precision results of your finds!

X-Ray Diffraction is the #1 method for mineral identification. XRD provides results that are unparalleled in its reliability. Fast and accurate results.

09/28/2019

A collector submitted some very tiny, very dark blue crystals from Japan, contaminated with admixed quartz. After removing as much quartz as possible with a needle under the microscope, we got a very sharp OSUMILITE pattern!

12/05/2018

Follow-up: Those blue grains in our head photo that look like turquoise, the ones that were about to get ground up to powder in the mortar? That was a small "turquoise" bead, one single bead sacrificed from a strand of 100 such beads. And here's its x-ray diffraction pattern:

12/01/2018

After the X-ray beam does its work, a diffraction spectrum like this appears on the screen and software compares the pattern to those of many thousands of natural minerals and synthetic compounds to find the closest match, in this case depicted here a very good pattern for the zinc mineral Hemimorphite. The sharp peaks, and the low level of background noise between the peaks, indicate a pure and well-crystallized specimen.

11/30/2018

After getting finely ground up in the corundum mortar, your mystery mineral sample is now a thin patch of powder (in this particular case a white powder) on a black silicon plate, which is here being inserted into the shielded chamber where it will be hit with a beam of x-rays.