Criminal and Environmental Soil Forensics
Soils have important roles to play in criminal and environmental forensic science. Since the initial concept of using soil in forensic investigations was mooted by Conan Doyle in his Sherlock Holmes stories prior to real-world applications, this branch of
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Karl Ritz • Lorna Dawson • David Miller Editors
Criminal and Environmental Soil Forensics
Editors Karl Ritz National Soil Resources Institute Natural Resources Department School of Applied Sciences Cranfield University Cranfield Bedfordshire MK43 0AL UK
Lorna Dawson The Macaulay Institute Craigiebuckler Aberdeen AB 15 8QH UK
David Miller The Macaulay Institute Craigiebuckler Aberdeen AB15 8QH UK
ISBN 978-1-4020-9203-9
e-ISBN 978-1-4020-9204-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008937475 © 2009 Springer Science + Business Media B.V. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Cover images (top left to bottom right): Lidar image of a search area; sampling soil from shoe impression at crime scene; optical laser scan of footprint impression in sand; polished section of concrete; trace evidence from urban soil including glass fibres embedded in aggregates; trace evidence from soil including pollen grain. Images all derived from material in this volume. Printed on acid-free paper springer.com
Foreword
Having crossed Hadrian’s Wall at Carlisle for the short journey from England into Scotland needed to present as guest speaker before the 2007 Soil Forensics Conference in Edinburgh, so capably organised by the Macaulay Institute, it was kind of Professor Karl Ritz from Cranfield University to invite me to follow up observations made there with a foreword to the resulting book; this fabulous compendium of ground-breaking, international science emerging from your important, biennial conference. As the articles following show, it is a fast-moving science but one taking many different forms and routes, in many different places around the world; places where climate, topography, ecosystems and even cultures vary hugely. However, amongst all that diversity of physical context or intellectual effort, the influence of the soil is the one common scientific denominator, whilst its application to criminal cases of homicide and unlawful killing, a recurrent reminder of man’s inhumanity to man, is naturally pre-eminent. The first, encouraging counterpoint to those grim atrocities against which forensic science is so often deployed is found in magnificent human ingenuity, as it builds remorselessly upon one scientific progression or invention after another to construct reliable mosaic pictures of the past out of whatever fragmentary remains are left us in the present, fit to persuade a court. The second is that universal thirst for justice which drives everyone engaged in the investigative and court process (police officers, forensic scientists, lawyers and ordinary citizens alike) to excavate answers out of those who would bury wickedness. What my own offering to
