**5. Conclusions**

This study is believed to be the first recorded example of a successful automated quantitative mineralogy analysis of fault gouge to be accurately performed at such a fine pixel detail (200 nm). The ability to quantify the EDS spectrum at each analyzed point into its primary chemical components, and the use of in-built matrix corrections and peak deconvolutions, provide a robust analytical framework to provide high-quality quantitative chemical data that have never before been possible in AQM. Then, this can be used to define mineral species and use the quantified chemical capability to identify and deconvolute the mixed signals at such fine scales, despite the mixed signatures provided from the primary electron beam interaction. Therefore, the ability to map and successfully classify at such high resolutions opens up a wide range of new applications in automated quantitative mineralogy that have never before been possible.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, S.G.; methodology, S.G.; validation, S.G. and N.K.; formal analysis, S.G.; investigation, S.G. and N.K.; resources, N.K.; writing—original draft preparation, S.G. and N.K.; writing—review and editing, S.G. and N.K.; visualization, S.G. and N.K.; project administration, S.G. and N.K.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Acknowledgments:** The authors would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their comments to an earlier version of this paper. The editors are thanked for their careful handling of the manuscript.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
