Fluid inclusions

Fluid inclusions and mineral exploration

Fluid inclusions can provide useful data in mineral exploration, as their characteristics depend on the mineralization process. The methods of using fluid inclusions to identify mineral deposits include assessing the abundance of a specific inclusion type, looking into variations in the inclusions' temperatures of phase changes during heating and cooling, and variations in other properties such as decrepitation behavior, and inclusions chemistry. Observation and point-counting of thin-sections of samples is used to identify the occurrence of specific inclusion types. If an abundance of similar fluid inclusions are found in close geographic proximity, one can conclude that the surrounding rock types are similar if not the same. Microthermometric properties (changes in temperature during phase changes) are used to characterize and categorize areas that witnessed thermal activity during mineral formation.