The mineral exploration industry requires new methods and tools to address the challenges of declining mineral reserves and increasing discovery costs. Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) represents an emerging geochemical tool for mineral exploration that can provide rapid, in situ, compositional analysis and high-resolution imaging in both laboratory and field and settings. We demonstrate through a review of previously published research and our new results how LIBS can be applied to qualitative element detection for geochemical fingerprinting, sample classification, and discrimination, as well as quantitative geochemical analysis, rock characterization by grain size analysis, and in situ geochemical imaging. LIBS can detect elements with low atomic number (i.e., light elements), some of which are important pathfinder elements for mineral exploration and/or are classified as critical commodities for emerging green technologies. LIBS data can be acquired in situ, facilitating the interpretation of geochemical data in a mineralogical context, which is important for unraveling the complex geological history of most ore systems. LIBS technology is available as a handheld analyzer, thus providing a field capability to acquire low-cost geochemical analyses in real time. As a consequence, LIBS has wide potential to be utilized in mineral exploration, prospect evaluation, and deposit exploitation quality control. LIBS is ideally suited for field exploration programs that would benefit from rapid chemical analysis under ambient environmental conditions.

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a type of optical emission spectroscopy capable of rapid, simultaneous multi-element analysis. LIBS is effective for the analysis of atmospheric gases, geological fluids, and a broad spectrum of minerals, rocks, sediments, and soils both in and outside the traditional laboratory setting. With the recent introduction of commercial laboratory systems and handheld analyzers for use outside the laboratory for real-time in situ analysis in the field, LIBS is finding increasing application across the geosciences. This article first overviews the LIBS technique and then reviews its application in the domain of mineral exploration and ore processing, where LIBS offers some unique capabilities.

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), which has recently emerged as tool for geochemical analysis outside the traditional laboratory setting, is an ideal tool for Li exploration because it is the only technique that can measure Li in minerals, rocks, soils, and brines in-situ in the field. In addition to being used in many products essential to modern life, Li is a necessary element for a reduced carbon future and Li–Cs–Ta (LCT) granitic pegmatites are an important source of Li. Such pegmatites can have varying degrees of enrichment in Li, Rb, Cs, Be, Sn, Ga, Ta>Nb, B, P, and F. We focus here on the LCT pegmatites of the Carolina Tin-Spodumene Belt (CTSB) situated in the Kings Mountain Shear Zone, which extends from South Carolina into North Carolina. The CTSB hosts both barren and fertile pegmatites, with Li-enriched pegmatites containing spodumene, K-feldspar, albite, quartz, muscovite, and beryl. We illustrate how handheld LIBS analysis can be used for real-time Li analysis in the field at a historically important CTSB pegmatite locality in Gaston County, N.C. in four contexts: (i) elemental detection and identification; (ii) microchemical mapping; (iii) depth profiling; and (iv) elemental quantitative analysis. Finally, as an example of a practical exploration application, we describe how handheld LIBS can be used to measure K/Rb ratios and Li contents of muscovite and rapidly determine the degree of pegmatite fractionation. This study demonstrates the potential of handheld LIBS to drastically reduce the time necessary to acquire geochemical data relevant to acquiring compositional information for pegmatites during a Li pegmatite exploration program.