I am trying to figure out the evaporite minerals in a soil sample from a playa. I have the chemical composition + many other extra analyses (FTIR, XRD; SEM). The chemistry shows up to 20% evaporites (water soluble) that don't show very well in the XRD of the bulk sample. I would like to do a NORM style computation. Doing a Google search the only software I found that does a CIPW NORM style for the evaporites is SNORM (Salt NORM) Bodine & Jones 1986. Unfortunately the code is given in print only style in their 1986 USGS report. Copying 40 pages of code from an OCRed pdf (courier font) file is not the maximum one can get in his life. Is there someone that has the digital version of this code? Contacting the authors is not an option. Dr. Bodine doesn't have a traceable address and, unfortunately, Dr. Jones is deceased.
Anyone could name some alternatives?
Hi Mathias,
I am not the one who does the XRD measurements; they were done by colleagues in another lab but with the samples prepared by me. The label says though that the resolution is 0.02 ° and the measurement time of about 4h. The issue here is that the salts in the sample are highly soluble (I am talking here about bischofite, probably antarcticite etc.). While in their sampled state they seem to be quite stable in the lab environment. That is not the case anymore when grinding them in a WC mortar. They start to get very wet as the above phases are very deliquescent. At this point the initial evaporite phases are gone. I've also done various separation schemes for wet chemistry analysis, but after the first steps again the initial phases are gone. So probably unless I change drastically the lab conditions (under 30 % relative humidity) the only way to address this is by modelling starting from the chemical analysis.
Thank you for your suggestion and thoughts.
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