Forensic comparative analysis of soils by the method of sporo-pollen analysis using projection to latent structures discriminant analysis

A. Khokh; V. Shalaboda

doi:10.32353/khrife.1.2021.16

A. Khokh https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4633-0163
V. Shalaboda https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5466-0352

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32353/khrife.1.2021.16

Keywords: forensic palynology, soil, microscopy, taxonomic composition, percentage, projection to latent structures discriminant analysis

Abstract

Extensive use of sporo-pollen analysis is largely conditioned by such specific features of pollen and spores as their very-large-scale production in plants, the ability to preserve in soils, presence of characteristic morphological features enabling to distinguish and identify individual taxa, etc.

In Belarus, the method of sporo-pollen analysis has also been implemented while forensic soil examination: it is increasingly applied to solve identification tasks in comparative analysis to establish the belonging of soil layers on physical evidence to the searched area. Its main advantage is that it is a multicomponent analysis allowing to evaluate both the composition of palynoflora and the percentage of several dozen components of sporo-pollen spectra contained in soil samples. Therefore, to determine the belonging of soil layers on physical evidence to the searched area, most informative are data obtained while sporo-pollen analysis, helping forensic experts on the basis of a specific taxonomic composition of pollen and spores and percentage of spectra components to draw the most valid conclusions.

Detection of pollen and spores in studied samples in a quantity sufficient for comparative analysis enables to statistically process data of samples microscopic examination. Statistical processing of results is one of the characteristic features of sporo-pollen analysis as a method that distinguishes it from other methods implemented in multidisciplinary forensic examination of soil.

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