Nuclear Fingerprints

Rycroft et al. (1999) identihed the major components of plants from six locations in western Scotland and four from the Azores using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) fingerprinting and GC-MS. The terpene P-phellandrene [129], which may be responsible for the aroma of material crushed in the held, was detected in all specimens. The major components, which appear in Fig. 5.6, were shown to be methyl eveminate [444], the four methyl orcellinate derivatives [445 8], the two 9,10-dihydrophenanthrene derivatives [449] and [450], the newly described phthalide killamiensolide [451], and the bibenzyl [453]. Methyl eveminate was the major compound in all 10 specimens other compounds were more varied in their occurrence. Killamiensolide was not isolated as such but was detected when extracts were acetylated yielding, among other compounds, [452]. The presence of the bibenzyl compound [453] in more than trace amounts in P. killarniensis raises the possibility that it represents contamination from P. spinulosa with which it was growing at the one site. 

Keisch, B. (2003), The Atomic Fingerprint Nuclear Activation Analysis, University Press of the Pacific. 

Isotope variations found in extraterrestrial materials have been classified according to different processes such as chemical mass fractionation, nuclear reactions, nucleosynthesis, and/or to different sources such as interplanetary dust, solar materials, and comet material. Various geochemical fingerprints point to the reservoir from which the planetary sample was derived and the environment in which the sample has formed. They can be attributed to a variety of processes, ranging from heterogeneities in the early solar nebula to the evolution of a planetary body. For more details the reader is referred to reviews of Thiemens (1988), Clayton (1993, 2004), and McKeegan and Leshin (2001). 

Owing to a number of very suitable resonant nuclear reactions with high cross-sections and relatively unambiguous reaction products that can be used as fingerprints , fluorine has become one of the popular chemical elements... 

The main spectrometric identification techniques employed are gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) (13), liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS(/MS)) (14), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) (11), and/or gas chromatography/Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (GC/FL1R) (15). Each of these spectrometric techniques provides a spectrum that is characteristic of a chemical. MS and NMR spectra provide (detailed) structural information (like a fingerprint ), whereas an FUR spectrum provides information on functional groups. 

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is one of the most powerful analytical techniques in organic chemistry for elucidating the molecular structures of chemicals (1,2). Moreover, an NMR spectrum may be used like a fingerprint to identify a chemical by comparing it with its reference spectrum recorded from the authentic chemical under comparable conditions. The spectrum also reveals information on molecular conformation, isomerism, molecular dynamics, and diastereomers (3 6). 

These associations are, at present, only tentative and assume a roughly single-stage lead isotope evolution, with negligible contamination of the copper ore deposits by lead derived from older country rocks. Nevertheless, this approach should be used as a basis for further field exploration of the areas in question. The mines and ore deposits in north and northwestern Turkey have recently been explored by a team from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg (42, 59), and we hope that there will soon be more information available for the lead isotope fingerprints of Anatolian ore sources. Information available so far proves only that Troy did not get copper from its hinterland and does not identify its source. 

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