DEVELOPMENT OF A STANDARDS FOR FORENSIC GEOLOGY UNDER NIST-ADMINISTERED ORGANIZATION OF SCIENTIFIC AREA COMMITTEES (OSAC) FOR FORENSIC SCIENCE TASK GROUP ON GEOLOGICAL MATERIALS

The Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science or OSAC was established in 2014 to facilitate the development of high-quality, technically sound standards for use in forensic science. OSAC is administered by NIST but the core participants developing standards come from forensic laboratories, universities, public agencies, and the private sector.

Since its inception, there has been a group in OSAC focused on developing standards in forensic geology. Currently the focus of this group is on the analysis of geological materials (rocks, sediments, soils) as trace evidence in criminal investigation, as opposed to the larger application of geoscience in legal matters in environmental and engineering geology.

The published products to-date emerging from the forensic geology group within OSAC include:

ASTM E3272-21 Standard Guide for Collection of Soils and Other Geological Evidence for Criminal Forensic Applications, and its companion YouTube video at: HTTPS://youtu.be/o9dWZOj1U5A

ASTM E3294-22, Standard Guide for Forensic Analysis of Geological Materials by Powder X-Ray Diffraction.

There are several additional draft standards in various degrees of completion and vetting through the standards development organization (in this case ASTM-International) and assessment for placement on the OSAC registry of approved standards. Among the more complete drafts are:

Standard Practice for Use of Color in Visual Examination and Forensic Comparison of Soil Samples

Standard Guide for Polarized Light Microscopy of Soils and Geological Materials for Forensic Applications

Standard Guide for Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM)/Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) Analysis of Soils and Geological Materials for Forensic Applications

Standard Guide for the Analysis of Soils and Other Geological Evidence for Criminal Forensic Applications

The Geoscience community can contribute to or influence the development of these standards in several ways. Interested persons can: become members or affiliates of an OSAC subcommittee; be part of a technical review board for a draft document; or anyone may comment during several public comment periods administered by OSAC and ASTM/ANSI.

Under an agreement with NIST, ASTM has made all their standards on the OSAC registry available to the public free of charge.