“…Within forensic soil science, techniques for the analysis of the inorganic content within samples have been widely established across many disciplines (1,2,4,6,8,9,20). The most common methods currently utilised include polarised light microscopy for general identification of minerals and rocks (1), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for semi-quantitative comparisons of the elemental composition (10,21,22), and x-ray diffraction (XRD) or scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX) for mineral speciation and characterisation of native metals (7,13,23,24). In many methodologies, several techniques are undertaken on separated fractions of soil, allowing further differentiation compared to the bulk chemistry (10,21,23,24).…”