Mineral compositions visualization implementing the spinel prism

Abstract

An important problem in Mineralogy, is to accomplish an adequate representation of a great amount of data coming from different geological environments, in order to characterize a particular geologic region in terms of its tectonic setting. With such Databases of mineral compositions it is possible to define the compositional fields that constitute a reference pattern to classify an unclassified data sample. Mineralogic patterns are represented in ad-hoc tree dimensional spaces that could be prismatic or tetragonal. In this context we developed the Spinel Prism Viewer, a Geological Visualization Application consisting on a 3D Viewer which allows the user to watch, explore and interact with the Spinel Prism and different Datasets at the same time. The Viewer provides projection tools in 2D and 3D, helping the users to understand the tectonic identity of a particular mineral composition represented on the view.