ICP-34 Multi-Element

A 200 mg charge is weighed out and digested in nitric, perchloric, and hydrofluoric acids, taken to dryness, then brought back into solution with hydrochloric acid. The four-acid attack achieves near-total dissolution of most geological matrices, and the finished solution is read on an ICP optical emission spectrometer, which measures the full suite simultaneously from a single aspiration.

The suite spans the rock-forming majors — Al, Ca, Fe, K, Mg, Na, P, S, and Ti — and an exploration-focused trace set including Ag, As, Ba, Be, Bi, Cd, Ce, Co, Cr, Cu, In, La, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Sb, Se, Sn, Sr, U, V, W, Zn, and Zr. A handful of elements hosted in highly refractory minerals, tungsten, tin, and chromium among them, may dissolve incompletely in some rock types.

Gold is not read from the ICP solution — a 200 mg charge is far too small to represent gold distribution in most samples. The Au + ICP combination package pairs the scan with a 30 g fire assay instead, giving multi-element context and a defensible gold number from one submission. The multi-element scan is run by ICP-OES and is outside the lab’s accredited scope.