Quantify liberation classes for process optimization. 

• Assess liberation of target minerals 
• Understand mineral association
• Evaluate mineral exposure
• Support decisions in comminution and separation

TIMA™ quantifies the liberation degree of valuable minerals, helping operators balance recovery and concentrate quality. These data guide comminution adjustments and separation strategies, reducing mineral losses while improving processing efficiency. 

High-resolution modal analysis for compositional variability 

• Quantify modal mineralogy across samples 

• Detect low-abundance and trace phases

• Compare ore types and concentrate products 

• Validate bulk analytical results with spatial data 

Automated mineralogy offers compositional accuracy beyond bulk methods. TIMA™ identifies phases down to trace levels and provides critical textural context, enabling robust characterization of ore types and processed materials. 

Determine where elements reside across mineral phases. 

• Identify mineral species hosting target elements 

• Analyze deportment across size fractions 

• Quantify deportment to sulphides, oxides, and other host species to guide process selection 

Elemental deportment clarifies whether elements like copper reside in sulphides, secondary phases (carbonates, sulphates, oxides etc.), or in native form. These insights support processing route selection and influence economic evaluation of ore types and blends. 

Link grain size distribution to comminution efficiency. 

• Measure grain size of target minerals 

• Evaluate particle textures 

• Predict optimal grind size for liberation 

• Reduce energy consumption in comminution 

TIMA™ phase maps and particle/grain size data support grinding optimization, helping operators avoid overgrinding and minimizing energy use— since comminution is one of the most energy-demanding stages of mineral processing. 

Determine how minerals occur and intergrow within the ore. 

• Identify associations between minerals of value and gangue 

• Evaluate inclusions, coatings or passivation rims, and composite textures 

• Quantify particle locking characteristics 

• Support separation strategies 

Association analysis reveals how target minerals—such as gold—interact with sulphides or gangue. These data are essential for designing effective flotation, leaching, and comminution strategies. 

Monitor element variability across grains and process stages. 

• Analyze element distribution at grain-level

• Track elemental deportment across size fractions 

• Integrate with metallurgical sampling structures 

• Reconcile mineralogical vs. chemical assays 

TIMA™ enables detailed evaluation of variability across ore streams, ensuring no grain hosting critical or penalty elements is overlooked. This supports accurate mass balance models and reconciliation workflows. 

• Automated mineral identification at thin-section or larger scale

• Rapid acquisition of objective, reproducible modal mineralogy

• Bulk chemical estimation and robust rock classification

Tescan TIMA™ enables automated mineral identification and quantification across large batches of samples, producing information-rich datasets with full spatial context. By delivering precise modal mineralogy alongside automated chemical rock classification, it significantly eases petrological interpretation while reducing the tedious manual workload traditionally associated with optical petrography.

• Map mineral distribution with high spatial resolution

• Quantify grain size distributions, aspect ratios, morphology, and mineral-to-mineral associations

• Ease interpretation of reaction textures

Detailed phase and elemental maps, combined with the interactive nature of the datasets, allow researchers to interrogate sample textures quantitatively. By merging high-resolution BSE imaging, rapid EDS spectral mapping, and automated phase classification. Insights into rock texture control genetic interpretations far more strongly than bulk modal or chemical composition alone.

• Screen large samples before point microanalysis

• Locate specific grains of interest for EPMA, LA-ICP-MS, or SIMS

• Export exact grain coordinates for seamless instrument-to-instrument follow-up

Tescan TIMA™ serves as an ideal high-throughput prescreening platform for advanced microanalysis because it covers thin-section-scale areas quickly while preserving grain-scale mineralogical detail. It allows users to automatically identify candidate grains, filter them by chemistry, texture, or morphology, and seamlessly pass their coordinates to higher-resolution or isotopic techniques for targeted downstream analysis.

• Correlate cathodoluminescence with mineral phase maps

• Improve interpretation of zonation and overgrowth textures

• Support geochronology and accessory mineral studies

Tescan TIMA™ supports integrated cathodoluminescence workflows, allowing luminescence information to be interpreted together with BSE and elemental data.

This is particularly useful in geoscience applications where growth zoning, recrystallization, and internal mineral textures are critical for interpretation and sample targeting.

• Evaluate compositional variability across thousands of grains

• Recognize zoning patterns and chemically distinct domains

• Support provenance, and petrogenetic studies

Tescan TIMA™ does more than identify minerals: it also helps characterize chemical variability across whole grain populations.

This makes it useful for studies that depend on population-scale mineral chemistry, such as provenance analysis, and selection of compositionally meaningful grains for further analysis.

• Search automatically for "needle-in-a-haystack" minerals based on chemical fingerprints

• Target accessory phases like zircons, monazites, REE-minerals, or PGMs efficiently

• Reduce time spent manually scanning large sections on standard SEMs

Tescan TIMA™ can be programmed to automatically search large sample areas for specific minerals or mineral groups based on their distinct chemistry and imaging response. This targeted approach is exceptionally powerful for accessory mineral studies, ensuring that rare or highly localized phases dispersed across large samples are reliably located without the risk of human omission or hours of manual microscope inspection.

• Combine elemental maps, BSE/CL images, grain by grain spectra, and phase classifications into a single database

• Sort, query, and filter grains dynamically by size, morphology, association, and chemistry

• Enable data filtering to test specific geological hypotheses

Automated mineralogy produces rich, multidimensional datasets that go far beyond static mineral maps. Tescan TIMA™ allows researchers to interrogate grains and phases by multiple nested criteria, making it a powerful platform for both discovery-driven mineralogy and highly structured, correlative workflows in modern academic geoscience.