A new centre of excellence for geochemical and mineralogical techniques: the acquisition of X-ray Mineral Services by Hafren Scientific.

Hafren Scientific Ltd is excited to announce the continuing expansion of its solutions portfolio following our successful acquisition of X-ray Mineral Services Ltd. Hafren believes that high-quality data is at the heart of robust geological solutions and is focused on providing practical, commercially sensible solutions for clients that do not compromise on quality. The acquisition of X-ray Mineral Services Ltd delivers world-class mineralogical expertise to the existing Hafren solutions suite, and our clients, old and new, can expect our innovative suite of high impact workflows and methods to continue to grow as a result. Take a look at the full detail of this latest Hafren success and contact us for news about how you can have high-quality data and knowledge without busting your budget in 2019 and onwards.

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Published on 30 April 2019

We hope that you all enjoyed the warm Easter weekend!

Record-breaking temperatures in recent weeks were due to warm air being pushed up from low latitude, bringing with it a plume of dust arising from wind storms in the Sahara. The plume even reached Iceland! Managing Director Steve had to wash his (black) car due to seagull ‘emissions’, and was surprised later to find a covering of reddish-orange dust on the patch that he had recently cleaned.

Just 45 minutes later we had an analysis: peaks for quartz, feldspar, calcite, dolomite, illite and chlorite were clear as can be seen on the diffractogram below.

We were impressed that we had good intensities and were able to quantify the material using Rietveld analysis. The results of this are shown in the table below: 

There are some fantastic images of previous events that have been collected by the Earth observation satellites operated by NOAA for the USA Department of Commerce. Here is one showing dust streaming out across the equatorial Atlantic from June 2018.

Digging around uncovered some interesting papers on dust emissions. It has been estimated that around 240 million tons of such dusts are deposited annually on and around the Atlantic Ocean, and the iron which is contained is a critical nutrient for marine algae in surface waters, the basis of the food chain, of course.

Iron is often difficult to pin down using XRD, since the iron oxides and hydroxides which give colour to geological materials is of poor crystallisation, or even amorphous. It is no surprise that iron-bearing phases are not detected in this diffuse and low-density XRD preparation.

All great XRD interest, but the rain from Storm Hannah washed it all away in a trice.

Published on 15 January 2019

The recent purchase of an ED-XRF spectrometer completes our analytical capability and enables X-ray Mineral Services to offer a full service in terms of XRF major and trace elements plus XRD analysis to a wide range of business sectors, without the requirement to outsource any services to other companies or universities.

This purchase has been supported by the European Regional Development Fund delivered through the Welsh Government SMARTCymru Innovation Voucher scheme.