Presentations on EPMA

[Probeman]

The full PowerPoint presentations given by me for the Athens EPMA Workshop last month are available here:

https://epmalab.uoregon.edu/posters.htm

These are Light Element Analysis and Evaluating and Correcting For Systematic Errors...

And full video of both Anette's and my presentations are found on our YouTuBe channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@ProbeSoftware

[John Donovan]

The video recordings of our Probe Software webinar held last Wednesday, are now available on our Probe Software YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@ProbeSoftware

Using PictureSnap and PictureSnapApp for advanced sample navigation and documentation by Dr. Anette von der Handt, University of British Columbia, Vancouver:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6tzYdyOJmE

High sensitivity, high accuracy trace element analysis by John J. Donovan, University of Oregon/Probe Software:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KM5lU403VY

Comments and questions are more than welcome!

[John Donovan]

Attached below (login to see attachments) are the presentation PDF files for both Anette's (PictureSnap and PictureSnapApp) and my (Trace Element Analysis) presentations.

[John Donovan]

I found this M&M poster from 2019 that Anette and I presented at that meeting, in case anyone is interested:

"Improved EPMA Analysis of Beam Sensitive Materials by a Combined Mapping and Time Dependent Intensity Correction Approach"

See attached below (remember to login to see attachments).

[John Donovan]

Attached below (login to see attachments) is the PDF file of my Modeling and Correction of Secondary Boundary Fluorescence Effects given today at the Athens 2025 EPMA Workshop.

[Probeman]

Attached below (you must login in to see attachments) is a pdf of my presentation on correction of beam sensitive materials on the EPMA for quantitative point analyses and x-ray maps for the Athens EPMA Workshop 2026.

Let me know if you have any questions. Some existing topics on these methods are found here:

https://smf.probesoftware.com/index.php?topic=11.0

https://smf.probesoftware.com/index.php?topic=116.0

[John Donovan]

In this and the following posts I will begin posting PDF files of the various M&M 2026 X13 short course that we presented on August 2nd, 2026 in Millwaukee, titled "SEM, EPMA, EDS, and WDS Best Practices for Quantitative Microanalysis"

https://mmconference.microscopy.org/SSC_X13

Attached below is the introduction presentation by John Donovan "Introduction to EPMA best practices, major, minor and trace elements" (remember to login to see attachments).

 

[John Donovan]

Attached below is Heather Lowers' presentation for the M&M 20206 short course:

"Designing analytical strategies, element/sample/file setups, standard selection, WDS and EDS spectrometer choices, analyzed vs. unanalyzed elements"

[John Donovan]

Here is Anette von der Handt's M&M 2026 X13 short course presentation "Correction of data, e.g., dead time, intensity/beam drift, backgrounds, matrix effects, low Z elements (peak shape/shift effects)":

[John Donovan]

Here is Joe Boro's presentation from the M&M 2026 X13 Best practices in EPMA/SEM short course "Correction of artifacts, e.g., spectral interferences, blank corrections, beam sensitive samples/carbon contamination, secondary boundary fluorescence"

See attached pdf

[John Donovan]

Here is Glenn Poirier's M&M 2026 short course presentation: "Analytical output, display/plotting, detection limits, reporting, data archiving, etc." as an attachment below. Remember you must be logged in to see attachments.

Note also that I have gone through the EPMA Events, Seminars, Meetings topic and moved all the posts containing pdf or pptx presentation files to this EPMA Education topic, so they can be found more easily. Therefore you might want to scroll back here to see these presentations that were previously buried in that topic.

[John Donovan]

Here is Paul Carpenter's M&M 2026 short course presentation from the EPMA/SEM Best Practices: "Quantitative mapping, stage/beam, including interferences and high current quantification" attached below.

[John Donovan]

Here is a pdf (attached below, login to see) of Will Nachlas' presentation at the M&M 2026 Sunday short course on: "Sample prep, instrument stability, Calibration procedures for WDS and EDS with standards, sample/standard navigation, point/area re-location and automation strategies"

[sckuehn]

Forwarding on an October 22 webinar announcement about "best practices for reporting EPMA procedures, and community review." I'm not sure who they reached out to directly.

    -----Original message-----
    From: info
    Sent: Monday, September 28 2026, 12:33 pm
    To: info <info@astromat.org>
    Subject: Invitation: Webinar on best practices for reporting EPMA procedures, and community review (Oct 22, 2026)
   

    Dear colleagues,
    You are receiving this email because you have been recommended by researchers as experts with EPMA (Electron Probe Micro-Analysis). We would like to invite you to a webinar on October 22, 2026 about a new effort to describe analytical procedures with EPMA in a consistent, comparable way. We are looking for expert reviewers, and we hope you'll consider joining us.

    Who are we? This effort is led by the Astromaterials Data System team at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, which is the primary NASA-sponsored data archive for lab analytical data on extraterrestrial samples generated with a broad range of analytical techniques. It is endorsed by, and developed in collaboration with, members of the OneGeochemistry Initiative.

    The problem. Analytical data increasingly sit in community databases, but the analytical procedures describing how they were produced mostly stay in publications or lab notebooks, in many different formats. Procedure reporting requirements differ among journals, databases, funding agencies, and scientific missions. As a result, it is hard to compare procedures across labs and studies, or to assess data quality based on procedure.

    What we're doing. We are developing Technique-Aligned Procedure Profiles (TAPPs). Each TAPP is a structured list of procedure metadata that matters for one analytical technique frequently used in natural sample analysis. It uses a shared vocabulary and is reconciled against existing reporting standards, so that procedures can be compared directly and linked to the data in databases. TAPP for EPMA is among the first batch to be developed, together with XCT, ICP-MS, TEM, etc.

    Why we need you. A TAPP is only as good as the practitioners who check it. We need experts who run the underlying instruments or use their data products to judge whether the profiles describe the technique correctly. That includes lab PIs and managers, technicians, research scientists, postdocs, and students. This review cannot be replaced by automation or done by the developers alone, and it is the crucial step toward TAPPs becoming community-recommended best practices.

    What you get. Reviewers who contribute quality feedback will be invited to be co-authors on the TAPPs when we publish them.

    Webinar details. The webinar will cover what an EPMA TAPP looks like and what review involves. We will run the same session twice on October 22, 2026 (for some time zones, the second session is on Oct 23) to accommodate time zones:

        10 AM Eastern Time (14:00 UTC)
        8 PM Eastern Time (00:00 UTC, Oct 23; 1 AM BST / 9 AM JST, Oct 23)

    Please register using the links above for the session that works best for you. Feel free to forward this email to anyone who might be interested. If you have any questions, please reach out to info@astromat.org.

    Best regards,
    The Astromaterials Data System Team
    astromat.org
    info@astromat.org
    Funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
    Hosted by the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University