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Minerals
Special Issues
Geochemical, Mineralogical, and Petrographical Applications to Environment and Cultural Heritage
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Geochemical, Mineralogical, and Petrographical Applications to Environment and Cultural Heritage

A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Mineralogy and Biogeochemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (11 May 2021) | Viewed by 11069

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Carmela Vaccaro

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Physics and Earth Science, University of Ferrara, Via Saragat 1, 44122 Ferrara, Italy
Interests: environmental science; food science; archaeology; geochemistry; mineralogy; petrology; petrography; isotope geochemistry; geochronology; archaeometry; materials characterisation, materials characterisation; archaemetry; petrography of aggregate rocks and various recycled materials; construction and environmental applications of rocks; concrete petrography
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Elena Marrocchino

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Environmental and Prevention Science, University of Ferrara, C.so Ercole I D’Este, 32, 44121 Ferrara, Italy
Interests: cultural heritage; materials characterization; petrochemical analytical techniques
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Cultural heritage is an ensemble of tangible and intangible resources inherited from the past which people identify as their evolving values, beliefs, knowledge, and traditions. In recent decades, digital technological revolution together with analytical methodologies optimization have produced an advancement in scientific techniques helpful to identify, characterize, and better outline the historical heritage and their materials. Data processing allows the reconstruction of environments and technology evolution. Integration of mineralogical and petrographic studies with new methods of intelligent use of cultural heritage permit improving historical reconstruction, promoting multidisciplinary conservative projects, disseminating good practices, and transferring knowledge to the younger generations with innovative languages.

Mineralogical, petrographical, and archaeometric studies supported by geochemical and isotopic data can establish the geological and geographical origin of materials and delimit the distribution areas and trade routes of many cultural goods, such as ceramics, pigments, and metals. Mineral associations as well as textures enable the determination of how ceramics or metals were made and the physicochemical conditions of their fabrication (e.g., firing temperature, reduction conditions, and amount and nature of additives). In addition to studying ancient man-made materials in order to understand the technology and cultural transference of past societies, the preservation and restoration of built heritage is important in modern societies. In the preservation and restoration of historic buildings, it is essential to characterize the construction materials, determine their origin, and analyze in detail their alterations and the degree of affection of materials. In the same way, knowing the nature of the old mortars in historic buildings is necessary in restoration, since it provides fundamental information for the design of new conservation mortars. Moreover, geochemical, mineralogical, and petrographical studies of materials have become essential as a part of the path for the recovery of traditional knowledge on reuse solutions for waste materials (i.e., coming from reuse or recycling) to promote innovation in the field of use of materials. This can help us to reduce the demand for primary raw materials and the associated environmental impacts.

Contributions from all experts around the globe working on cultural heritage science submitted in areas such as archaeometry, characterization techniques, new materials and methodologies, historical studies, conservation, alteration and aging, climate impact, cultural landscape, geoarchaeology, nautical and underwater archaeology, dating and authenticity, maintenance and sustainability, best practices and legislation, ecological solutions, data management, case studies, and other related fields are warmly welcome.

Prof. Carmela Vaccaro
Dr. Elena Marrocchino
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Minerals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • construction materials
  • material characterization
  • cultural heritage
  • production technology
  • archaeometry
  • environmental conservation
  • restoration
  • geochemistry

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

27 pages, 5970 KiB  
Article
Geochemistry, Mineralogy and Textural Properties of the Lower Globigerina Limestone Used in the Built Heritage
by Lino Bianco
Minerals 2021, 11(7), 740; https://doi.org/10.3390/min11070740 - 7 Jul 2021
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 4743
Abstract
The Lower Globigerina Limestone Member, the oldest member of the Globigerina Limestone Formation, outcrops over most of the Maltese archipelago, notably Malta. It has provided the islands’ main building material since the Neolithic period. This paper makes available a corpus of findings relating [...] Read more.
The Lower Globigerina Limestone Member, the oldest member of the Globigerina Limestone Formation, outcrops over most of the Maltese archipelago, notably Malta. It has provided the islands’ main building material since the Neolithic period. This paper makes available a corpus of findings relating to the geochemistry, mineralogy and textural properties of this limestone—mostly unpublished and undertaken nearly three decades ago—which provide a useful source to understand its behavior. Bulk chemistry and mineralogy showed that non-carbonate and clay content is higher in limestone of inferior quality. Textural analyses gave insight into the fabric of the matrix, including inter- and intra-particle porosity. These analyses were supplemented by an array of petrophysical tests, including color (a parameter which has a correlation with density and Fe2O3 content), ultrasonic pulse velocity and compressive strength. The findings not only give insight into the composition of the limestone, using insoluble residue content of ≥5% as the threshold of inferior quality lithotype, but provided an insight into the physico-mechanical bonding present, a characteristic which has a bearing on the deterioration of this limestone. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geochemical, Mineralogical, and Petrographical Applications to Environment and Cultural Heritage)
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18 pages, 5906 KiB  
Article
Geochemical and Petrographic Characterization of Bricks and Mortars of the Parish Church SANTA Maria in Padovetere (Comacchio, Ferrara, Italy)
by Elena Marrocchino, Chiara Telloli, Mario Cesarano and Manlio Montuori
Minerals 2021, 11(5), 530; https://doi.org/10.3390/min11050530 - 18 May 2021
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3051
Abstract
From the 1950s and 1960s of the last century, a parish church dating back to the 6th century AD was identified during reclamation works of Valle Pega. The archaeological investigation allowed the recovery of the parish and the attached baptistery, as well as [...] Read more.
From the 1950s and 1960s of the last century, a parish church dating back to the 6th century AD was identified during reclamation works of Valle Pega. The archaeological investigation allowed the recovery of the parish and the attached baptistery, as well as some tombs closely connected to the church. Following the excavation, it was possible to collect some samples of bricks and mortars in order to identify the different compositions of the materials used for the construction of the parish. All the samples were analyzed through optical microscopy, X-ray powder diffractometric analysis and observation through scanning electron microscope. Thanks to the investigations carried out on the samples, it was possible to hypothesize the different construction phases and the different materials used and to identify the firing temperatures at which the bricks were built. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geochemical, Mineralogical, and Petrographical Applications to Environment and Cultural Heritage)
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22 pages, 6934 KiB  
Article
Multi-Scale Measurements of Neolithic Ceramics—A Methodological Comparison of Portable Energy-Dispersive XRF, Wavelength-Dispersive XRF, and Microcomputer Tomography
by Julia Menne, Astrid Holzheid and Christopher Heilmann
Minerals 2020, 10(10), 931; https://doi.org/10.3390/min10100931 - 21 Oct 2020
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2483
Abstract
Archaeometric investigation of ancient pottery with regard to their material composites allows insights into the material structures, production techniques and manufacturing processes. The applied methods depend on the classification of the pottery: some finds should remain unchanged for conservation reasons, other finds are [...] Read more.
Archaeometric investigation of ancient pottery with regard to their material composites allows insights into the material structures, production techniques and manufacturing processes. The applied methods depend on the classification of the pottery: some finds should remain unchanged for conservation reasons, other finds are less valuable or more common. While the first group cannot be destroyed for material analyses and the choice of analytical methods is limited, the latter can be investigated using destructive methods and thus can widen the spectrum of possible devices. Multi-element analyses of portable energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (portable XRF) have become important for archaeological research, as portable XRF provides a quick overview about the chemical composition of potteries and can be used in non-destructive as well as destructive ways in addition to conventional microscopic examination and petrographic thin sections. While most portable XRF analyses of solely fracture surfaces do not provide satisfying results, portable XRF analyses on pulverized samples are a cost-efficient and fast alternative to wavelength-dispersive XRF (WD-XRF). In comparison to WD-XRF, portable XRF on pulverized samples provides reliable concentration data (K, Fe, Rb, Ti, V, Y, Zn, Zr), but other elements need to be corrected. X-ray microtomography (µCT) has proven to be a non-destructive technique to derive not only the porosity of ancient pottery but also to characterize temper components and non-plastic inclusions. Hence, the µCT technique has the potential to extract valuable information needed by archaeologists, for example, to deduce details about manufacturing. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geochemical, Mineralogical, and Petrographical Applications to Environment and Cultural Heritage)
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