The Application of the Multi-Layered Chert Sourcing Approach (MLA) for the Characterisation and Differentiation of ‘Chocolate Silicites’ from the Holy Cross Mountains, South-Central Poland

Characterizing “Chocolate” Flint Using Reflectance Spectroscopy

“…The following study is a preliminary experiment on the application of reflectance spectroscopy to characterizing variability in 'chocolate' flint at two scales of analysis, between type formations and within a type formation. Recent studies highlight the possibility of characterizing 'chocolate' flint to a degree benefiting provenance research (Přichystal 2013;Brandl et al, 2016). The current study largely builds upon the previous research and positive results presented in Parish (2016a) that demonstrated the ability of reflectance spectroscopy to differentiate between a large sample of cherts outcropping across the Southeastern United States of America.…”

“…'Chocolate' flint has to date been analysed by a few different methods (Přichystal 2013;Grafka et al 2015;Brandl et al, 2016;Hughes et al 2016;Werra et al 2018). The most useful results were obtained thanks to the use of Multi-Layered Chert Sourcing Approach (MLA) by Michael Brandl (Brandl et al, 2016) and stereomicroscopic appearance made by Antonín Přichystal (2013: 108).…”

One century of studies on chocolate flint. And what do we really know about it ...?

“…The Multi-Layered Chert Sourcing Approach (MLA) by combining macroscopic, microscopic and geochemical analyses using Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), seems to offer other possibilities (Högberg and Olausson 2007;Andreeva et al 2014;Brandl 2016;Brandl et al 2018;Bradley et al 2020). Recently, the analysis of samples of chocolate flint form Holy Cross Mountains region revealed clear possibilities to differentiate chocolate flint from Jurassic-Kraków flint based on characteristic microfossil inclusions and trace element contents (Brandl et al 2016). On the other hand, separation of the Holy Cross Mountains chocolate flint is possible to a certain extent only, due to certain limitations resulting from their geographic proximity and consequently, similar geologic environments of their origins.…”

“…Now, in the second decade of this century, we are certain that the issues of extraction and processing of chocolate flint in the north-eastern region of the Holy Cross Mountains still raise many questions that need to be answered and are undertaken within various research projects, a great example of which are verification investigations in the chocolate flint mine in Orońsko (since 2016) (Kerneder-Gubała 2018;2019;Osipowicz et al 2019) andIłża (Gróżdź et al 2021). Moreover, there were made attempts to obtain a diagnostic set of data characteristic for various outcrops of "chocolate" flints from Central Poland, based on geochemical methods of siliceous rocks identification (Grafka et al 2014;Hughes et al 2016;Parish and Werra 2018;Brandl et al 2016;Werra and Siuda 2022).…”

A multi-technique analytical approach to sourcing Scandinavian flint: Provenance of ballast flint from the shipwreck “Leirvigen 1”, Norway

“…Consequently, the main emphasis of the current study was to establish a sound methodology for sourcing Scandinavian flint based on hypotheses that were formulated after a decade of provenance studies involving silicites from a broad variety of geological backgrounds [ 69 , 70 , 73 , 87 , 88 ]. Detailed geological and morphological information is available for each geological location discussed in this study, hence we concentrated on parameters we found best suitable for source differentiation.…”