Strontium Isotope Ratio Map of Southern British Columbia, Canada for Mobility and Migration Studies
This paper demonstrates how strontium isotope ratios of plants vary across southern British Columbia.
The strontium isotope ratios of humans and animals generally reflect the underlying geology that their food is grown on.
Researchers in forensic science, archaeology and biology can then use these strontium isotope ratios to determine which geological area animals and humans lived in. However, this requires baseline strontium geology maps of different regions, and this paper presents the results of a baseline strontium map for southern British Columbia.
Read this open access paper on the FACETS website.
Our study used an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) to measure the strontium isotope ratio of plants from across a 900 km transect of British Columbia.
In general, we found that the Eastern half of the province had considerably higher strontium isotope ratios due to the age of the Rocky Mountains, while the western half of the province had considerably lower strontium isotope ratios.
Our results also indicate that the strontium isotope ratio of plants near British Colombia’s coast are below the expected value of coastal strontium isotope ratios, suggesting that ash from the Circum-Pacific belt may be lowering the strontium ratios.
With this information we used empirical Bayesian kriging to generate an isotope ratio map that visually demonstrates these results.
We hope that this information will be used to inform research in archaeology, ecology, and forensic science within British Columbia.
Read the paper — A pilot bioavailable strontium isotope baseline map of Southern British Columbia, Canada by Damon Tarrant, Joe Hepburn, Virginie Renson, and Michael Richards.
