An Advanced Image Processing Technique for Backscatter-Electron Data by Scanning Electron Microscopy for Microscale Rock Exploration

Backscatter electron analysis from scanning electron microscopes (BSE-SEM) produces high-resolution image data of both rock samples and thin-sections, showing detailed structural and geochemical (mineralogical) information. This allows an in-depth exploration of the rock microstructures and the coupled chemical characteristics in the BSE-SEM image to be made using image processing techniques. Although image processing is a powerful tool for revealing the more subtle data “hidden” in a picture, it is not a commonly employed method in geoscientific microstructural analysis. Here, we briefly introduce the general principles of image processing, and further discuss its application in studying rock microstructures using BSE-SEM image data.