Being rather common in carbonate minerals, isomorphism has practical importance in the identification of these minerals. The percentage of CO2, which can be measured by using thermogravimaetry, is a function of the components involved in isomorphism. Therefore, thermal analysis can be used to determine the isomorphism contribution to the compositional characteristics of earbonate minerals.
Thermal-analysis technique has proved highly effective not only in the qualitative identification of various carbonate minerals in carbonate rocks, but also in the quantitiative determination of them. Both qualitative identification and quantitative determination of carbonate minerals in carbonate rocks can be made based upon the DTA curves produced by various carbonate minerals during their decomposition at different temperatures, and the weight loss of CO2 escaped .from carbonate minerals respectively By comparing the results from artificially prepared sampling tests and the quantitative thermal analysis on Liaoning Sinian carbonate rocks with those from chemical calculation,we can see that the error is as small as below 2.50%. And thus, this technique is considered as one valid method with the advantages of simplibility in performance and reliability in the qualitative identification and quantitative determination of corbonate minerals in carbonate rocks.
