Journey history reconstruction from the soils and sediments on footwear: An empirical approach

Morgan, Ruth M.; Scott, Kirstie R.; Ainley, Jessica; Bull, P.

doi:10.1016/j.scijus.2018.11.002

Cited by 16 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Physical trace material is often analyzed in a comparative manner with a relevant sample recovered from an exhibit being compared to a sample taken from a known location, such as a crime scene or an alibi site. For example, with environmental traces, such as minerals or diatoms, it is relatively common when specimens are recovered from exhibits, such as footwear or vehicles, that those specimens are often composed of materials from multiple sources that may represent locations visited preor postcrime event (Morgan et al, 2019). One of the benefits of "physical" (particulate) trace materials is that, during the analysis phase, it is possible to identify components (usually optically) from multiple sources that are present within a sample (Morgan & Bull, 2007a).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Empirical studies addressing the transfer and persistence of trace materials have developed since the early work of Pounds and Smalldon () (fibers), Brewster, Thorpe, Gettinby, and Caddy () and Hicks, Vanina, and Margot () (glass), and Morgan et al () and Bull, Morgan, Sagovsky, and Hughes () (general particulates). There is now a growing body of published work that addresses a wide range of different physical traces (Bitter, (smoke residues), Maitre et al, (GSRs), Palmer, Sheridan, Puckett, Richardson, & Lo, and Slot et al, (fibers), Levin, Morgan, Scott, & Jones, (diatoms), Morgan, Scott, Ainley, & Bull, (soils) Morgan, Flynn, et al, , and Morgan, Allen, King, & Bull, (pollen)).…”

Section: Understanding Trace Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Crime reconstruction and the role of trace materials from crime scene to court

Morgan

Meakin

French

et al. 2019

WIREs Forensic Science

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Crime reconstruction takes place in a complex ecosystem and needs to be responsive to the context of each case. For accurate, reproducible and transparent crime reconstructions to take place, a holistic approach is needed that considers the different stakeholders, different types of trace material, integral human decision-making and interconnected nature of the forensic science process. For robust reconstruction, there needs to be a consideration of both the distinctive types of trace material that can contribute to the reconstruction, and an understanding of the interplay of human decision-making within reconstruction approaches. In addition, it is also necessary to consider source attribution of a trace material in addition to the activities that led to the generation, identification, transfer, and persistence of the trace. This requires explicit and tacit forms of knowledge, and an incorporation of the inherent uncertainty and risk in the reconstruction approach. The communication of conclusions reached in a crime reconstruction that address what the evidence means is also an important consideration given the different requirements of intelligence and evidence. Therefore, undertaking a crime reconstruction within a holistic framework that seeks to incorporate the complexity of the forensic science ecosystem is valuable for achieving a problem solving approach that offers reproducible, transparent reconstructions with a clear articulation of risk and uncertainty that can be of value to investigators and the courts.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Understanding Trace Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crime reconstruction and the role of trace materials from crime scene to court

Morgan

Meakin

French

et al. 2019

WIREs Forensic Science

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“…Numerous instrumental techniques have been applied for soil analysis and reported in numerous agricultural and geoscience studies [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]; however, optimizing the analytical methods for a very small quantity of sample is seldom a prime consideration. In a forensic context, the amount of soil that may be readily recoverable from a victim or suspect could be minute [14][15][16][17]. Hence, analytical methods that have the ability to acquire information from a minimal quantity of soil are the mostneeded methods in forensic soil analysis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forensic Profiling of Non-Volatile Organic Compounds in Soil using Ultra-Performance Liquid Chromatography: A Pilot Study

Lee

Ishak

Ameeta

et al. 2021

Forensic Sciences Research

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Soil is of particular interest to the forensic community because it can be used as valuable associative evidence to link a suspect to a victim or a crime scene. Liquid chromatography is a powerful analytical tool for organic compound analysis. Recently, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) has proven to be an efficient method for forensic soil analysis, especially in discriminating soils from proximity locations. However, ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC), which is much more sensitive than HPLC, has never been explored in this context. This study proposed a UPLC method for profiling non-volatile organic compounds in three Malaysian soils (red, brown and yellowish-brown soils). The three soils were analysed separately to assess the effects of individual chromatographic parameters: (a) elution programme (isocratic vs. two gradient programmes); (b) flow rate (0.1 vs. 0.2 mL/min); (c) extraction solvent (acetonitrile vs. methanol) and (d) detection wavelength (230 vs. 254 nm). The injection volume and total run time were set to 5 µL and 35 min, respectively. Consequently, each soil sample gave 24 different chromatograms. Results showed that the most desirable chromatographic parameters were (a) isocratic elution; (b) flow rate at 0.2 mL/min and (c) acetonitrile extraction solvent. The proposed UPLC system is expected to be a feasible method for profiling non-volatile organic compounds in soil, and is more chemical-efficient than a comparable HPLC system. KEY POINTS• UPLC is a chemical-efficient analytical method for profiling non-volatile organic compounds in soil. • Mobile phase rich in acetonitrile promotes separation of non-volatile organic compounds in soil. • Isocratic elution is more desirable than gradient elution in producing a high-quality chromatogram.

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“…Commonly, the sand fraction is removed from the bulk soil to improve the homogenization of the samples, and the focus is generally given to the clay fraction analyses due to its surface reactivity (Melo et al, 2008). In some circumstances, the sand fraction is the main fraction used in forensic case work Morgan et al, 2019). When crimes occur in sandy soils, where the amount of clay in the vestige sample is insufficient to undergo chemical and physical analyses, it is important to have prior validation of forensic protocols for the analysis of the sand fraction (Morgan et al, 2010;Carvalho et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Under tropical and subtropical conditions, chemical weathering dissolves out most of the primary minerals, such as the feldspars, biotite and Fe-bearing particles, and concentrates the quartz (Saye and Pye, 2004;Shudofsky et al, 2017;Chauhan et al, 2018;Melo et al, 2019). Coarser particles are normally dominated by quartz and their morphological features are focused on which in some aspects are related to transport, accumulation, and weathering processes, and are useful as they remain in and on the sand grain for a long time (Morgan and Bull, 2007;Pye et al, 2007;Farrugia et al, 2012;Batista et al, 2018;Morgan et al, 2019). Such features can provide important information regarding the nature and the provenance of the sample, depending on the analytical approach used.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%