Data Report for quantitative analysis of mineral composition using powdered X-ray diffraction method and RockJock program

Abstract

Powered X-ray diffraction analysis is a fundamental method to quantitative analysis of mineral composition in sediments and rocks. RockJock program, which was developed by Eberl (2003) in USGS, is distributed free of charge, and is based on the Solver function in Microsoft Excel. More than 90 minerals can be determined to quantitative mineralogical composition, therefore, most of sediments and rocks retrieved by deep ocean drilling programs can be applied. It is quite easy to use the RockJock software, whereas the accuracy and the problems was not investigated enough. In addition, an approach to treat the small amount of samples and a method to evaluate amorphous bearing materials are not well established. Therefore, we report these concerns involved in RockJock programs using sediment core samples from D/V Chikyu Expedition and standard pure materials. Our results show that we can use RockJock program for small amounts of samples and amorphous bearing materials. Our results suggest that it is necessary to select the suitable condition according to the minerals composed in samples to improve the solution. We can recycle standardless XRD data measured on board D/V Chikyu for the quantitative RockJock analysis.