Micro-XRF trace element quantification in calcite: a contribution to white marble provenance determination. Proocedings of Microscopy & Microanalysis 2011, Nashville, Tennessee, USA, Microscopy & Microanalysis Vol. 17, Suppl. S2, pp 1808-1809. doi:10.1017/S1431927611009913.

researches, leading to the creation of extensive databases based on the combined results of different geological and physico-chemical methods . Even though isotope geochemistry seemed to give the most discriminant results [e.g. 3], the progressive increasing of the database and the consequent overlapping of the characteristic fields pointed out the need of developing multi-method strategies. The methodological approach presented here combines petrographic and ?-XRF geochemical data acquired on a set of 320 reference samples from 20 different Mediterranean quarrying sites. Main goal of the research was to evaluate the effective discriminant capability of a new micro-analytical approach based on trace element quantification with ?-XRF Eagle III-XPL (Röntgenanalytik Messtechnik GmbH, Germany) non-destructive instrument. Poly-capillary lenses (30 ?m) were used to collimate the microbeam at the sample surface. Single spot analyses on calcite grains gave reproducible results within the same quarry and allowed overcoming the problem of the considerable variations of solution-based ICP-MS analyses.