Fluid inclusions can provide useful data in mineral exploration, as their characteristics depend on the mineralization process. The methods of using fluid inclusions to identify mineral deposits include assessing the abundance of a specific inclusion type, looking into variations in the inclusions' temperatures of phase changes during heating and cooling, and variations in other properties such as decrepitation behavior, and inclusions chemistry. Observation and point-counting of thin-sections of samples is used to identify the occurrence of specific inclusion types. If an abundance of similar fluid inclusions are found in close geographic proximity, one can conclude that the surrounding rock types are similar if not the same. Microthermometric properties (changes in temperature during phase changes) are used to characterize and categorize areas that witnessed thermal activity during mineral formation.
Fluid inclusions have been used to identify deposits of oil and gas. Drilling cuts, cores, and/or outcrop materials are preserved for their pore-fluids, and the chemistry of the fluid is analyzed with Fluid Inclusion Stratigraphy (FIS). FIS analysis takes the spectrometric reading of a fluid inclusion's volatile species; these are indicative of a natural gas or oil deposit nearby. The abundance of similar fluid inclusions could, however, be attributed to hydrocarbon migration and accumulation, so other techniques are used to confirm the presence of the oil deposit after initial detection of fluid inclusions.