Date: Thu, 19 May 94 16:38:35 CDT
Subject: Quantiview 3.0 bug: Standard Names
From: johnf@ice

Today, I have been evaluating standards and have had some rather strange
experiences, and now realize the following problem exists (I do not know
if it existed in previously versions of Quantiview):

If you name a standard with a name that also is the abbreviation of an
element present, it ignores the composition you enter and instead assumes
_al_l elements present are pure elements.

My particular example: I calibrated on a chromite standard and called
the standard "cr" (why not?), and entered the composition: al=5.25,
fe=10.17, mg=9.2, cr=41.52, o=32.84, mn=.08. However, when I used this
calibration in a declaration, it used a concentration of chromium as 100%
not the 41.52 wt%. (I verified this my analyzing the standard as an
unknown).

To see if this was reproducible, I took my sillimanite (al2si05)
standard,
and made up a new name for it (in the standard display window) as "al",
enterring the proper al,si and o concentrations. When I created a label
using this standard as the si and al standards, and then analyzed, it
used the compositions of each si and al as 100%.

In the printout:

(for this label "jftest")

element i.x./i.std k.ratio wt % conc

Al 0.9954 0.9954 99.66
Si 1.0007 1.0007 100.07
O 202.65
402.38

but when I used the same standard (named sil, in this case), the result
was

Al 0.992 0.2628 33.039
Si 1.0026 0.1163 17.376
O 49.182
99.598


John Fournelle
Electron Microprobe Lab Internet:johnf@geology.wisc.edu
Dept of Geology & Geophysics Telephone: (608) 262-7964
University of Wisconsin Fax: (608) 262-0693
1215 West Dayton Street Amateur radio: WA3BTA/9
Madison, WI 53706 (14.030, 21.030 mHz)