Hao A. E-mail: hao. In recent years, multi-element chemical analysis has been applied to a broad range of solid samples in mineralogy, geology, environmental science, biology and beyond. In this study, we present a quantification method for the multi-element composition of minerals and a statistical method to investigate chemical similarity among samples. This case study focuses on major, minor and trace element analysis of emerald, a highly relevant mineral in the gemstone trade.
In total, samples were analyzed without a priori knowledge of their geographic provenance. The clusters in the t-SNE plot coincide with the geographic provenance of these emeralds, probably due to unique elemental fingerprints within the geological setting in each provenance.
Not only for provenance studies, but when combined with further sample characteristics e. A drawback of this sequential mass separation is that users are required to setup a list of isotopes of interest before measurement. This means, a priori knowledge about elemental content of the sample must be presumed.
The limitations of this approach are evident when analyzing samples containing trace and ultra-trace elements which occur only rarely and occasionally e. Furthermore, once the isotope selection is set and ablation is completed using Q-MS, it is not possible to quantify elements whose isotopes were originally excluded from the list without re-ablating the sample.
A solution to overcome these drawbacks is to apply full mass spectrum acquisition, such as time-of-flight mass spectrometry TOF-MS as presented in this study. As a consequence, there is no need to establish a list of elements of interest prior to analysis as with Q-MS. This is particularly helpful in cases where unexpected trace elements are present in a mineral matrix.
