Identifying the origin of lead poisoning in white-backed vulture (Gyps africanus) chicks at an important South African breeding colony: a stable lead isotope approach.

Elevated lead levels in scavenging raptors can originate from a variety of environmental and anthropogenic sources, including soil, water, mining activities and legacy lead from leaded fuel, but has mostly been attributed to fragments of lead-based ammunition embedded in the tissues of carcasses. To identify the origins of lead in the tissues of white-backed vulture (Gyps africanus) chicks at Dronfield Nature Reserve, South Africa, we used MC-ICP-MS to compare the isotopic composition of lead in blood samples to those of soil in the chicks' immediate environment, different mining activities in South Africa and lead ammunition commonly used in hunting and game management practices. The isotopic ratios in vulture blood samples ranged widely (Pb/Pb: 0.

Bioavailable Sr/Sr in European soils: A baseline for provenancing studies.

We present Sr/Sr isotope ratios for ~1200 selected soil samples, collected by the GEMAS consortium from grazing (Gr) and agricultural (Ap) soils in Europe with the aim to better understand the strontium isotope distribution in the bioavailable fraction of the top-soil and its potential for provenancing applications. Spatial analysis shows that there is a clear distinction between coastal (<100 km) and non-coastal (>100 km) samples in their variance and that this variance is mirrored in the sodium concentration, suggesting an important but highly variable contribution from seaspray. We present two Sr/Sr maps at 25 km × 25 km scale: one based solely on the measured data using a classical kriging approach and one based on a Random Forest model using complementary GEMAS data to predict the strontium isotope composition at the remaining 3000+ GEMAS sampling locations, including appropriate uncertainty assessment.

Isotopic and elemental data for tracing the origin of European olive oils.

H, C, and O stable isotope ratios and the elemental profile of 267 olive oils and 314 surface waters collected from 8 European sites are presented and discussed. The aim of the study was to investigate if olive oils produced in areas with different climatic and geological characteristics could be discriminated on the basis of isotopic and elemental data. The stable isotope ratios of H, C, and O of olive oils and the ratios of H and O of the relevant surface waters correlated to the climatic (mainly temperature) and geographical (mainly latitude and distance from the coast) characteristics of the provenance sites.