Gold fingerprinting by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

Trace element fingerprinting of ancient Chinese gold with femtosecond laser ablation-inductively coupled mass spectrometry

“…LA-ICP-MS analysis of the fragments was expected to reveal either one Pd/Pt profile related to the gold source, as suggested in the literature (Watling et al, 1994;Guerra, 2004a), or none, due to random variation as a result of manufacture. Therefore, the emergence of three distinct Pd/Pt groupings is somewhat surprising.…”

“…Therefore, the relationship of these precious objects to ancient gold sources and/or craft workshops is of great historical and technical import. Although significant variation in composition may exist within a placer gold deposit, patterns of inter-element associations, or ''fingerprints,'' may exist for a large number of objects manufactured from the same gold ore (Leake et al, 1993;Watling et al, 1994;Watling et al, 1999;Ixer, 1999;Guerra, 2004b;Guerra et al, 2005). Among elements that may be geologically associated with gold ore, platinum group elements, including palladium, platinum, osmium, ruthenium, rhodium and iridium, are of particular interest.…”

Determination of arsenic in gold by flow injection inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry with matrix removal by reductive precipitation

“…The determination of the common impurities in gold is important in assessing the value, physical properties, and point of origin of a sample of gold [1][2][3]. Arsenic is often present at ppm concentrations in gold.…”

“…Electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ET-AAS) with batch anion-exchange removal of the gold matrix [4], and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) [1,3] have both been used to determine trace elements in gold samples. Some of the advantages of the LA ICP-MS method are: solid sampling, microsampling, sensitivity, and multi-element capability.…”

Distinguishing Between Legally and Illegally Produced Gold in South Africa

“…Anything from the ore to the final metal product is stolen and the challenge is to develop techniques like elemental profiling to identify the original source of the gold, despite different beneficiation procedures applied by companies and criminal syndicates. The mineralogy of gold ores from the Witwatersrand mines is relatively consistent and the recovery of the gold is easily achieved with unsophisticated methods, such as panning, amalgamation, and cyanidation [3,4].The trace element profiles of substances such as paint [5,6], glass [7,8] and precious metals [9] have been used to prove a link between a sample of the material in question and samples from known provenance. There have been problems with the interpretation of the results of such profiling [10], and this has been extensively discussed and reviewed in the literature [11].…”