Trace element composition

There are several possible reasons why a scientific study of an art work may be desirable. An obvious one is in cases where the authenticity of an object is doubted on styHstic grounds, but no unanimous opinion exists. The scientist can identify the materials, analy2e the chemical composition, and then investigate whether these correspond to what has been found in comparable objects of unquestioned provenance. If the sources for the materials can be characterized, eg, through trace element composition or stmcture, it may be possible to determine whether the sources involved in the procurement of the materials for comparable objects with known provenance are the same. Comparative examination of the technological processes involved in the manufacture allows for conclusions as to whether the object was made using techniques actually available to the people who supposedly created it. Additionally, dating techniques may lead to the estabUshment of the date of manufacture. 

Figure 1.155. Trace element composition of studied rock samples. (A) Nishikurosawa shale, (B) Onnagawa hard shale, (C) Funakawa shale. Shaded area represents ranges.

Table 8.2. Trace element composition of sewage treatment plant effluents from the U.S., southern California, and Israel...

Trace element composition of sewage sludge from the U.S. and Israel. 

Table 2. The trace element composition of the Spitzbergen snowmelting water, ppb (Evseyev, 1988).

Raven KP, Loeppert RH. Trace element composition of fertilizers and soil amendments. J. Environ. Qual. 1997 26 551-557. 

Reiche, I., Favre-Quattropani, L., Calligaro, T., et al. (1999). Trace element composition of archaeological bones and postmortem alteration in the burial environment. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 150 656-662. 

Relationship between the trace elemental composition of phytoplankton, continental crust and seawater. Phytoplankton and crustal abundances are normalized to phosphorus (ppm trace metal ppm P). Seawater trace elements abundances are normalized to phosphate (ppb trace metal ppb P as phosphate). Source-. From Quigg, A., et al. (2003). Nature 425, 291-294. 

Belousova, E.A., Griffin, W.L., O Reilly, S.Y., Fisher, N.I. 2002. Apatite as an indicator mineral for mineral exploration trace-element compositions and their relationship to host rock type. Journal of Geochemical Exploration, 76, 45-69. 

Tubrett, M., Mikova, J., Sylvester, P.J., Kosler, J. 2003. Trace element composition and homogeneity of MASS-1 sulfide oalibration standard In 5th International Conference on the Analysis of Geological and Environmental Materials, Rovaniemi. 9-11 June 2003... 

The geochemical classification using major oxides shows that the samples used in this study plot in the litharenite field, and, implies that they are mineralogically submature. Major-element concentrations point to significant weathering effect in the source area of the sample set. Provenance analyses, based on major-and trace-element compositions suggest... 

Lithogeochemistry was initially applied to the rocks from the Sherridon complex in an attempt to help clarify the stratigraphy of the volcanic sequence. To date, the major- and trace-element compositions of 1964 samples of drill core and 751 outcrop samples have been analysed by... 

The distributions of trace elements between minerals and within a suite of related rocks provide powerful tools for constraining the origin and history of rocks and meteorites. Trace-element abundances for rocks typically are part of the data set collected when determining bulk compositions. Trace element compositions of minerals require more powerful techniques such as the ion microprobe or the laser-ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICPMS). 

A third way in which thermodynamics can be used is to invert the measured major, minor, and trace element compositions of coexisting minerals to estimate the temperature, pressure, and oxidation state under which they formed. Valid results can only be obtained if the system was truly in equilibrium at the inferred conditions and the minerals did not subsequently change composition. Nevertheless, this is a powerful way to infer the formation conditions of various solar-system materials. 

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