ORI Seminar Series: Dr. Sorcha Diskin

As part of the ORI Seminar series, Dr Sorcha Diskin, an ORI scientist delivered a seminar on the topic "Sediment provenancing using whole rock geochemistry – how useful is it really?”. In her presentation, Dr. Diskin demonstrated how two applications of sediment geochemistry and the different discrimination diagrams can be used to shed light on the relationships of different materials. The first is in the traditional application of whole rock geochemistry to a sequence of sedimentary rocks, here the Botswana Karoo Supergroup. This application shows how the chemistry is able to demonstrate origin of the materials and a sequence of events. The second example, from the archaeological record where pottery (a geological material) was analysed and potential sources can be suggested for this material which are not obvious from traditional methods.