Data-fusion of high resolution X-ray CT, SEM and EDS for 3D and pseudo-3D chemical and structural characterization of sandstone

When dealing with the characterization of the structure and composition of natural stones, problems of representativeness and choice of analysis technique almost always occur. Since feature-sizes are typically spread over the nanometer to centimeter range, there is never one single technique that allows a rapid and complete characterization. Over the last few decades, high resolution X-ray CT (μ-CT) has become an invaluable tool for the 3D characterization of many materials, including natural stones. This technique has many important advantages, but there are also some limitations, including a tradeoff between resolution and sample size and a lack of chemical information. For geologists, this chemical information is of importance for the determination of minerals inside samples. We suggest a workflow for the complete chemical and structural characterization of a representative volume of a heterogeneous geological material. This workflow consists of combining information derived from CT scans at different spatial resolutions with information from scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy.