18 Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology
2.1 Charts to aid the visual estimation of modal proportions of minerals in rocks. (From Terry RD, Chilingar GV.)
dance of biotite at the expense of the other minerals. In
rocks that contain oriented tablets of plagioclase,
an examination in hand sample of a rock surface paral-
lel to their {010} direction would reveal little if any
polysynthetic twinning, thus possibly leading to an
erroneous modal determination for plagioclase. (This
twinning is the surest criterion for recognition of
plagioclase in hand sample.) To overcome biasing the
mode in anisotropic rocks, it is necessary to average the
analysis on three mutually perpendicular surfaces, gen-
erally oriented parallel and perpendicular to the planar
and/or linear fabric elements.
Modal analyses can also be performed by analyses
of digital images on a computer. Digital images of
rocks can be produced from backscattered electron
intensities that portray the average atomic number of
minerals or by element mapping under the beam of an
electron microprobe (discussed later). The Rietveld
X-ray diffraction method provides modes of wholly
crystalline (nonglassy) rocks. However, because the
sample is pulverized, this method ignores textures
of mineral grains, which might be important in the
case of secondary mineral overgrowths and replace-
ments.
Chemical Analyses. Since the 1960s, rapid instrumental
methods of chemical analyses of rocks and minerals have
taken the place of tedious wet methods requiring skilled
chemical analysts. All of these instrumental methods are
comparative, based upon a comparison of the intensity of
some measured quantity in an unknown sample with the
intensity in a standard sample of known composition.
Some instrumental methods have very low detection lim-
its that are measured in parts per million (ppm) or even
in parts per billion (ppb) by weight. The detection limit,
specific for an element, is what the method can measure
in a sample above the background of instrumental
“noise.” Although element concentrations are deter-
mined in all of these methods, major elements are
nonetheless reported as oxides, following the traditional
presentation of the results of wet methods of analysis.
Some methods, such as atomic absorption spec-
trophotometry (AA), flame photometry, emission spec-
troscopy, and inductively coupled plasma spectrometry
(ICP), depend upon detection of shifts in outer elec-
trons in the atom as the sample is heated to extreme
temperatures. In X-ray fluorescence spectrometry
(XRF), atoms in the sample are bombarded with X rays
of sufficient energy to eject an inner orbital electron. As