Earth Colors Report

X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is the emission of characteristic "secondary" (or fluorescent) X-rays from a material that has been excited by bombarding with high-energy X-rays or gamma rays. The phenomenon is widely used for elemental analysis and chemical analysis, particularly in the investigation of metals, glass, ceramics and building materials, and for research in geochemistry, forensic science and archaeology.

Hexavalent Chromium (Cr6+) (also known as Cr VI) has been commonly used as a coating on a variety of materials, often to act as a corrosion inhibitor. Cr6+ can also be used in pigments, dyes, paints, inks, textiles, plastics and a host of other materials.

The worrisome byproduct of stainless steel welding is hexavalent chromium, also referred to as Cr(VI). It’s the same stuff from the movie Erin Brockovich. Though as to not frighten one too much, the people of Hinkley, CA were drinking water that had 1,000 times the legal limit of chromium for 20 years before bad things happened.

Studies have suggested that all people in the welding profession are at higher risk for cancer. There are many unknowns about the increased risks even after all the studies.

“So lead chromate had not only the offending hexavalent chromium, but also good old lead, a nice, toxic heavy metal.”

How was GIS used to find poor little Cricket’s body?

Gamboge + Prussian Blue = Hookers Green

Because of the toxicity of natural gamboge, it is now produced synthetically or cadmium yellow is used as a substitute.

“The lead in lead white. As a geologist, you probably already know this: With modern milling and cyanide processes, how pure is the lead produced at a silver mine?”

I said, “The lead is removed from the silver, not the other way around…No wait! I get it! I’m used to thinking of the silver as the product and the lead as the byproduct, but either way you’re just trying to separate the two. Prior to the development of the cyanide refinement system a century ago, some of the silver would be left in the lead!”

How was it determined that the linseed oil could not be from Remington’s era?

What would be the significance of atmospheric C-14 post industrial revolution? Would there be a decrease or increase in the C-14 ratio?

“ The FBI has a moto: No Crime is committed without duct tape!”

“…Think of all the companies that make it. There are seven or eight different adhesives, for starts. The fiber used to reinforce it varies, as does its weave, and the density of the weave. And even with your basic gray duct tape—it comes in red, and blue, and …well, what have you—the tape material itself varies, and the filler material in it, which, by the way, is also geologic trace evidence, because that filler is made of clay—kaolinite, bentonite—and the coloring pigments include rutile, calcite, aragonite….”

Frederic Remington (1861 – 1909)