Abstract The most recent advance in infrared spectroscopy is in the use of real-time imaging reflectance spectrometers to study cores and cuttings. These are non-contact and non-destructive, and acquire continuous mineral and hydrocarbon data in a detailed sub-millimetre pixel image format. The main strength of this approach is the unique ability to accurately discriminate and quantify the clays, carbonates and sulfates, along with hydrocarbon information. Three hyperspectral core-scanning projects from the UK and Norwegian Continental Shelf highlight how these detailed, continuous mineral and hydrocarbon data can be used in geological and petrophysical evaluations. In the Dunbar Field of the Northern North Sea, UK, the spectral recognition of illite and kaolinite polytypes associated with faulted sandstone units contributed to a successful revision of lithostratigraphic correlation between wells with core material and those with only cuttings. These had been hitherto problematical. In Norway, hyperspectral mineral data from mixed carbonate–siliciclastic sequences across the Permo-Triassic boundary in the Alta Field, Barents Sea, helped in the delineation of a karstified dolomitic reservoir. A kaolinite cyclicity associated with an Upper Triassic stacked alluvial fan sequence was also identified in the Lorry Prospect, Norwegian Sea. Finally, it is demonstrated how hyperspectral data can be applied quantitatively to help to calibrate downhole petrophysical data, improve gamma log scaling for shale volume calculations and link mineralogy to permeability.