Summer being over, geologists are back to the office with their samples....

After more than a year and a half of efforts, IOS is now ready to commercially launch its thin section fabrication service. Although being a niche market, this service broadens the offering from the firm and will support a wide array of needs from the industry.

Right from its inception in 1992, IOS offered a service of petrographic studies to the mineral industry as well as to civil engineering. Thousands of thin sections were described under the microscope through time, dealing with hundreds of different metallogenic or petrologic environments. The service is also used for acute expertise in metallurgy, material sciences, aggregates industry, concrete degradation, as well as various industrial applications. This broad experience pointed the importance of high quality preparation, hard to obtain in commerce.

Thus, in spring 2014, IOS acquired the shaping and polishing equipments, organized the laboratory space, and start developing its art of manufacturing such delicate items. In autumn 2014, we gained a 1000 sections per year, recurrent contract, which forced us to fast track the service to match demand and quality requirements. As usual, we succeeded.  And now, we are ready to offer the service at large to the industry, one of the only four firms in the select club in Canada.

Our service offers manufacturing of regular 30 microns sections for transmitted light examination, 0.05 microns polished sections for ore petrography or microprobe analysis, as well as manufacturing of epoxy grains mounts for diamond indicators analysis (microprobe) or MLA-QEMSCAN type of work. Drill core and rock slab cutting and polishing for display is also offered, as well as feldspar staining and other specialized services. Our quality of polishing match the highest standards commercially achieved by the industry.

Thin section manufacturing completes our much appreciated petrography service. With 20 years of experience as our senior petrograph, Mme Lucie Tremblay, has built a reputation for detailed and insightful examination. You can witness her work on the 50+ reports handed as assessment files, publically available on Examine. On top of conventional petrography, the acquisition of a latest generation electron microscope enables us to produce X-ray chemical maps as well as mineral classification directly from the sections or polished drill core. This technique outperforms QEMSCAN mapping, being capable of quantitative microanalysis comparable in quality to a microprobe analysis. You have questions about your rocks, and we deliver the answers...

Do not hesitate to contact our service manager, Mme Natacha Fournier, P.Geo., at 418-698-4498 or by mail :  .

For more information on our services or to fill up a work order for thin section fabrication, please visit our website at : http://www.iosgeo.com/en/laboratory/petrography/.