GSA Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado, USA - 2016

Paper No. 254-2
Presentation Time: 9:00 AM-6:30 PM

PROVENANCE STUDY OF TURQUOISE USING TRACE ELEMENT ANALYSIS


ZHENG, Yuan, Gemological Institute, China University of Geoscience (Wuhan), No.388 Lumo Road, Wuhan, 430074; Gemmological Institute, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), No. 388 Lumo Road, Wuhan, 430074, China and SHEN, Andy, Gemmological Institute, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), No. 388 Lumo Road, Wuhan, 430074, China, yuanzheng@2014.cug.edu.cn

Trace-element compositions of hundreds of geological turquoise samples from Zhushan, Ma’anshan areas in China and Kingman area in America were measured by ICP-MS. The data reveals that trace elements of turquoise from these three areas can be differentiated by Linear Discriminant Analysis. The result shows that it is feasible to restrict the possible provenance of ancient turquoises based on linear discriminant analysis of trace elements in Chinese ancient turquoise artifacts.