Discrimination between sediment and soil samples for forensic purposes using elemental data: an investigation of particle size effects

This paper reports the results of an investigation to quantify variations in elemental concentrations amongst different particle size fractions obtained from a suite of sediment samples collected from the River Avon, UK. Concentrations of 49 elements determined by inductively coupled plasma spectrometry (ICP-AES and ICP-MS) were compared using conventional and multivariate statistical methods in order to assess compositional differences between different size fractions and between different samples. The results showed significant differences between different size fractions and the bulk sediments, but indicated that all of the size fractions considered (<150, 63-150, 20-63 and <20microm) provided an adequate basis on which to identify associations and differences between samples. It was concluded that, while in certain specific circumstances it may be most appropriate to make forensic comparisons based on a very narrowly defined particle size range, for the majority of purposes the <150microm fraction provides the best compromise between sample size requirements and data resolution.