Environmental Mineralogy

SGS’s High Definition Mineralogy services offer a wide range of applications for the environmental strategies of companies.

Our key emphasis is to provide a proactive measure to ensure the safety and quality of monitoring systems in a work place or industrial site. To do this, we provide the identification and deportment (texture) of minerals or phases in natural or industrial environments to:

• Determine if contamination is present and if so, to what degree
• Assess and help mitigate potential contamination problems
• Develop effective, focused remediation plans including the treatment and processing of products and waste material
• Verify that methods put in place to control the redistribution of suspect phases or minerals in the environment are operating as required

SGS’s expertise can cover:

• Mineral or phase identification and characterization (mode of occurrence)
• Search-and-analyze strategies
• Acid rock drainage assessments
• Contaminant mapping in soils, sediments or tailings
• Soil remediation
• Dust particle composition and size analysis
• Industrial hygiene testing for silica and asbestos
• Forensic mineralogy and assessments
• Digital imaging with or without related microchemical analyses

The extensive range of approaches described above can be applied to:

• Rocks, ores and processing products
• Soils and other natural surface materials
• Tailings and waste rock
• Industrial products and wastes
• Scales and slags
• “Dust”, filter deposits and fly ash
• Residues, deposits and precipitates
• Metals and alloys (e.g. construction and industrial materials)

SGS is the industry leader in High Definition Mineralogy for industry sectors that need detailed material, product or residue characterizations. SGS mineralogy experts ensure a quality product and provide significant interpretive value at any stage of your project. Minimize your risk and know your particulates.