Journal
FORENSIC SCIENCE INTERNATIONAL
Volume 241, Issue -, Pages 127-137Publisher
ELSEVIER IRELAND LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2014.05.011
Keywords
Forensic geoscience; Diatoms; Trace evidence; Transfer; Collection procedure; Soil Collection procedure
Categories
Funding
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council of the UK through the Security Science Doctoral Research Training Centre (UCL SECReT) based at University College London [EP/G037264/1]
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [1207487] Funding Source: researchfish
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Forensic geoscience is concerned with the analysis of geological materials in order to compare and exclude environmental samples from a common source, or to identify an unknown provenance in a criminal investigation. Diatom analysis is currently an underused technique within the forensic geoscience approach, which has the potential to provide an independent ecological assessment of trace evidence. This study presents empirical data to provide a preliminary evidence base in order to be able to understand the nature of diatom transfers to items of clothing, and the collection of transferred diatom trace evidence from a range of environments under experimental conditions. Three diatom extraction methods were tested on clothing that had been in contact with soil and water sites: rinsing in water (RW), rinsing in ethanol (RE), and submersion in H2O2 solution (H). Scanning electron microscopy (S.E.M.) analysis was undertaken in order to examine the degree of diatom retention on treated clothing samples. The total diatom yield and species richness data was recorded from each experimental sample in order to compare the efficacy of each method in collecting a representative sample for analysis. Similarity was explored using correspondence analysis. The results highlight the efficiency of H2O2 submersion in consistently extracting high diatom counts with representative species from clothing exposed to both aquatic and terrestrial sites. This is corroborated by S.E.M. analysis. This paper provides an important empirical evidence base for both establishing that diatoms do indeed transfer to clothing under forensic conditions in a range of environments, and in identifying that H2O2 extraction is the most efficient technique for the optimal collection of comparative samples. There is therefore potentially great value in collecting and analysing diatom components of geoforensic samples in order to aid in forensic investigation. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.
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