Recent Advances in Automated Mineralogy and Associated Application

Dear Colleagues,

It is our pleasure to announce the launch of a new Special Issue on the topic of “Recent Advances in Automated Mineralogy and Associated Application”, which will mark 30 years of the term “automated mineralogy” being used in technical journals. This term relates to highly automated and quantitative analysis of minerals, rocks, and human-made materials typically on micron to sub-micron scales. While originally developed for the mining industry, its current applications span from primary and applied geosciences to environmental science, forensic science, archeology, metallurgy, material science, and beyond.

The main focus will be on case studies, applications, and the latest technology developments, in this fast-growing field of research related to producing statistically robust quantitative mineralogical and petrological data through automation in scanning electron microscopy and related microanalytical techniques. Our Special Issue will cover a broad range of relevant topics of interest, such as:

• Automated mineralogy in geoscience;
• Applied automated mineralogy;
• Sample preparation techniques in automated mineralogy and petrology;
• Machine learning and artificial intelligence in automated mineralogy and petrology;
• Automation in scanning electron microscopy;
• Automation of analytical techniques utilized in automated mineralogy and associated application;
• Applications of automated mineralogy;
• Sustainable sourcing of minerals and critical metals.

Dr. Tomáš Hrstka
Dr. Roman Skála
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Minerals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• automated mineralogy
• mineral liberation analysis
• automated scanning electron microscopy
• machine learning in geosciences
• microanalytical techniques
• QEMSCAN
• TIMA
• MLA