The capability to spatially triage geographical areas as low and high interest has the potential to provide valuable information as forensic intelligence to law enforcement operations, and related provenancing applications. Among others, our previously published work has largely been based on the elemental composition of topsoil samples, omitting other potentially useful compositional characteristics, such as mineralogy, that have proven valuable in forensic casework discriminations. In this contribution, a total of 334 topsoil (0–5 cm sampling depth; 0–75 µm fraction) samples collected from the Canberra region in Australia, were selected from a larger collection (n = 685) and their bulk mineralogy determined using X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD). Utilising an existing casework technique for discriminating soils by mineralogy, a total of twelve diagnostic peaks were selected representing commonly occurring minerals. Peak intensities were normalised relative to the sum of their intensities and used to create an indicative mineralogy dataset for the study region. Based on an existing algorithm for assigning investigative analytical similarities from overlapping areas between two Cauchy distributions, the provenance was estimated for thirteen blind topsoil samples. Provenance maps based on the mineralogy were subsequently combined with earlier elemental-based predictions, incorporating contrasting discriminatory capabilities from both techniques. Results indicate the mineralogical component of topsoils can provide accurate provenance predictions, and when combined with those based on the elemental composition, can further delineate areas as low interest that otherwise would not necessarily be differentiated from one technique alone.

将地理区域按低兴趣和高兴趣进行空间分类的能力有可能为执法行动和相关来源应用程序提供有价值的信息，作为取证情报。除此之外，我们之前发表的工作主要基于表土样本的元素组成，忽略了其他潜在有用的成分特征，例如矿物学，这些特征已被证明在法医案件判别中有价值。在本论文中，从澳大利亚堪培拉地区收集了总共 334 个表土（采样深度为 0-5 厘米；0-75 µm 部分）样本，这些样本是从更大的集合中选出的（n = 685），并使用 X 确定了它们的整体矿物学射线粉末衍射（XRPD）。利用现有的案例技术通过矿物学来区分土壤，总共选择了十二个代表常见矿物的诊断峰。峰值强度相对于其强度总和进行标准化，并用于创建研究区域的指示性矿物学数据集。基于用于从两个柯西分布之间的重叠区域分配调查分析相似性的现有算法，估计了十三个盲表土样本的来源。基于矿物学的起源图随后与早期基于元素的预测相结合，结合了两种技术的对比辨别能力。结果表明表土的矿物成分可以提供准确的来源预测，并且当与基于元素成分的成分相结合时，