Patent ID: 8664595

Claim:
A method for determining the mineral content of a sample, said method comprising: directing an electron beam toward multiple point of unknown composition; detecting x-rays emitted as a result of the electron beam impacting the sample to acquire an a-ray spectrum, and forming a data point; classifying the data point from a sample by comparison to a set of known data points as a classified data point, wherein said classified data point is classified as a similar data point if the characteristics of the classified data point are similar to the characteristics of a known data point and alternatively the classified data point is classified as a dis-similar data point if the characteristics of the classified data point are not similar to that of a known data point; placing the data point into a group wherein the characteristics of the data points within the group have characteristics similar to that of the classified data point; repeating the previous steps until all data points are classified data points and are placed in groups with similar characteristics; and analyzing the groups with dis-similar data points to for use in processing the mineral sample.