Kirk Petrophysics™ offer IR spectroscopy measurement via a ruggedised infrared imaging spectrometer designed to rapidly build up a detailed, real-time, image of a rock sample. The tool is useful for identifying a range of minerals including phylosilicates, carbonates and sulphates, but especially for discriminating the detailed clay mineralogy, e.g. clay types (including kaolin polytypes) and crystallinity, swelling and non swelling clays, and as such is complementary to techniques such as XRD.

Accurate modal percentage values can be derived due to the large number of data points, and total clay values can be derived after calibration.

The IR Spectrometer is a powerful tool for better understanding of stratigraphic correlations and reservoir properties.

It can provide continuous data over a reservoir interval, and thus provide a link between wireline logs and the point sampling methods such as SEM, Thin Section and XRD.