Systems and methods for measuring formation properties in downhole operations are provided. The systems and methods include generating, at a neutron source, neutrons that are emitted into a downhole formation (302), registering, at a detector, photons generated by chemical constituents of the downhole formation (304), measuring a response of the photons registered at the detector (306), transforming, with a computing system, the measured responses of the photons registered at the detector into thermal neutron capture probabilities (308), and transforming the thermal neutron capture probabilities into weight concentrations of the chemical constituents of the downhole formation (312).