Traditionally, the major areas of application of thermal methods of analysis to minerals are: Assessment of raw material deposits, through characterization, classification and analysis. Investigation of the changes that take place in the mineral resulting from thermal processing. Characterization of products at various stages in industrial processing. In this paper, examples are given in each of the above areas. The need for the use of complementary techniques, such as chemical analysis, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy, to give qualitative and quantitative assistance in the interpretation of results, are stressed. In addition, recent recommendations on the reporting of details of the sample and experimental variables will be presented. A relatively recent application of thermal techniques is in environmental studies. These can take various forms, form investigations into gaseous emissions which result from the thermal processing of minerals, to studies of the effects of pollutants on the properties of soils.