We pride ourselves on good communication, excellent thin sections and timely delivery of comprehensive and well illustrated reports.

Mintex Petrological Solutions (Rowena Duckworth) and Ingham Petrographics (Darren Richardson) work together to provide you with a one stop shop for your thin section, petrographic and reporting needs.  We aim to deliver on time, always. Our rates are very competitive and we are happy to negotiate for large jobs and pull out the stops for rush jobs.  

We are based in tropical North Queensland: Rowena is based in Townsville and has access to the geochemical analytical equipment at James Cook University (Electron Microprobe, SEM) and Darren has his own purposely built petrographic lab in Ingham.  We are now looking at setting up a second thin section prep lab in Townsville. 

• Rowena is an economic geologist and has been looking at rocks down the microscope since 1987 and specialises in reflected light microscopy, but has many years experience in transmitted light microscopy, particularly of variably metamorphosed and hydrothermally altered rocks. She has been involved in many post-doctoral research projects at Cardiff University and JCU (Townsville) investigating ore genesis and alteration since completing her Ph.D at Cardiff University, Wales, UK. She has abundant experience with modern hydrothermal systems (black smokers) having spent six years studying them as a post-doctoral researcher, as well as with Archean rocks of WA, Proterozoic deposits of Sweden (Skellefte District, Bergslagen) and Australia's well endowed Cloncurry-Mount Isa Blocks and Gawler Craton, Palaeozoic systems of the east coast of Australia, and geologically younger copper-gold systems in Phillipines, Indonesia, and SE Asia in general.  IOCG, VMS, skarns, epithermal, and porphyry systems are favourites!

  Rowena is a Fellow of the SEG, an AIG member and AusIMM member, and serves on the AusIMM Geoscience Committee, the NQ AusIMM Branch Committee, the SEG Student Grant Review Committee and the National Rock Garden Steering Committee. She was also heavily involved with the AIG Mentoring Committee for 6 years. She is also a STEM Women member.

• Darren has been making thin sections for over 15 years and specialises in polished thin sections that are electron microprobe ready, as well as being the correct thickness for reflected light microscopy. His lab utilises the most modern equipment and his sections are always even, well polished and the correct thickness. He generally has a turn around time of 2-4 weeks. 

CAN WE HELP YOU? YES, WE CAN!