The potential of external IBA and LA-ICP-MS for obsidian elemental characterization

A moderate microsampling in Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry analysis of cultural heritage objects: a review

“…The results of sensitive LA-ICP-MS elemental/isotopic measurements can be used to support the use of other instrumental meth- ods such as Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectrometry (SEM-EDS) [12,31,38,74,79,112,118,130,135,166,170,181,182], Electron Probe Microanalysis (EPMA) [75, 80, 81, 97, 112, 167, 183 -185], X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) [16,31,35,44,93,94,98,119,120], Proton Induced X-Ray Emission [22,41,95,114,186,187] or Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) [23, 36, 99, 100, 107, 108, 114, 146, 188 -192]. Leroy et al [193] reported the first application of confocal Synchrotron Radiation micro X-Ray Fluorescence (SR-m-XRF) with LA-ICP-MS.…”

Role of laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry in cultural heritage research: A review

“…A large number of elements were determined, ranging from major (Si, Al, Ca, Na, K) to minor (Fe, Mn, Mg, Ti, Rb) to trace constituents, including essentially all the elements not mentioned before. It should be highlighted that the distinction between minor and trace components is purely indicative as large variations in concentration are a distinctive feature of obsidians (typical ranges are reported in [57]). …”

“…the concentration of one element, chosen as the internal standard, is determined by means of a different technique (Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis, INAA or X-Ray Fluorescence, XRF). Silicon is mostly used [50,52,55,57] although sodium [58] and aluminum [55,56] are employed at times, 2. the signals of the analytes (S Ai ) and the internal standard is registered and, after blank subtraction, the first ones are ratioed to the latter (S Ai /S IS ), 3. the analyte to internal standard ratio in the sample is converted into a concentration by comparison with the same ratio in a solid standard material.…”

“…The standards NIST SRM 610 and NIST SRM 612 were originally certified for only eight trace elements, with concentrations around 500 mg/kg and 50 mg/kg in NIST 610 and NIST 612, respectively. These standards were extensively used as calibration standards for obsidian chemical analysis [50,[52][53][54]57,58,60]. Although only a few elements were originally certified by NIST, these reference materials were extensively studied in the past decades and indicative concentrations are available for around 60 trace elements [61].…”

“…As far as the case histories on the sources of obsidian objects by LA-ICP-MS are concerned, the investigations were performed in the Mediterranean and Near East area [51][52][53][54], Transylvania [57], Mexico [50], California [58,60], Ecuador [55] and Guatemala [56]. These investigations typically involve the analysis of both several known obsidian outcrops (sources) and obsidian objects from archaeological excavations.…”