A simplified silver phosphate extraction method for oxygen isotope analysis of bioapatite.

Rationale: Although phosphatic materials are chemically complex and are prone to exchange oxygen isotopes with their environments, the phosphate (PO ) component of these materials is robust and retains its original oxygen isotopic composition. As a result, there are currently several methods for the isolation of phosphate oxygen through the precipitation of silver phosphate (Ag PO ). However, some of these techniques produce Ag PO of questionable purity, while nearly all are lengthy and/or require relatively large sample sizes.