Abstract: The invention provides a method and apparatus for the analysis of rocks and rock fragments. A method for the analysis of a rock fragment including: feeding the rock fragment to a microwave irradiation zone of microwave energy generated by a microwave source; gauging energy absorbed by the rock fragment; and correlating rate of change of the gauged energy absorbed by the rock fragment with compositional characteristics of the rock fragment.

Abstract: A particle sorting apparatus for sorting particles following a free flight trajectory including: a detector for detecting a characteristic of the particles before or after they enter the free flight trajectory; an ionization source that emits a stream of ions for selectively applying charge to particles following the free flight trajectory; a static electric field for deflecting particles that have been charged by the ionization source; and means for deflecting the stream of ions emitted from the ionization source between a first orientation in which the stream of ions does not intersect the free flight trajectory and a second orientation in which the stream of ions does intersect the free flight trajectory depending on whether a particle following the free flight trajectory is detected as having the characteristic or not.