法庭地质学与泥土物证检验

Forensic Geology and Soil Examination

"法庭地质学"是将地质科学知识和技术应用于法庭科学的一种现代科学,其研究内容非常丰富,涉及化学、物理学、生物学、考古学、工程学等多个学科,更涉及诸如泥土、矿物、植物、孢粉、微生物检验等多个方面。通过对法庭地质学材料,特别是在案件中常见的泥土物证的检验,可以实现两个目的,第一是通过对现场提取到的地质材料与已知来源样品的比对,证实嫌疑人或物品是否与犯罪现场有关联;或者通过附着在工具上的泥土与现场泥土比对检验,判断嫌疑人是否使用过该工具等。第二是通过对相关地质材料的检验,推断该物证的可能来源,为案件侦查提供方向和线索。因此,对与犯罪有关的地质材料物证进行检验,成为一项重要的物证鉴定任务,形成了"法庭地质学"的研究和检验领域。国外法庭科学领域开展对"法庭地质学"研究和利用相对较早,对其应用也非常重视,国际刑警组织第15～18四届国际法庭科学研讨会上专门设立"法庭地质学"的专题报告。世界上大型犯罪调查实验室都提供泥土物证检验的服务。很多国家,特别是英国、美国、日本等国家,对法庭地质学的研究和应用较为广泛,将地质学知识应用于犯罪现场调查以及法庭审判的成功案例不计其数。但是,在国内法庭科学领域,将地质学信息应用于法庭科学中的工作几乎还未开展,虽然少数物证检验实验室在泥土物证检验和利用方面做了一些零星的工作,但并不系统也不完善。还有很多业内人士甚至对"法庭地质学"的概念也不熟悉。因此亟须发展法庭地质学,建立包括多种地质材料在内的系统检验方法,合理解释和利用检验结果,解决目前检验和应用中存在的问题,为我国的案件侦破和审理工作服务。

Forensic geology is a discipline to apply geological information and technology into solving forensic problems.It is integrative and relies heavily on the knowledge and techniques from a wide range of other sciences such as chemistry,physics,biology,archaeology,engineering,the other disciplines alike and even their sub-branches.The forensic earth-related materials include soil,mineral,sediment,plant debris,pollen,microbe and some anthropogenic substances.Among them,soil is the most tangible and important for forensic laboratories because it is ubiquitous,capable of providing crucial information for criminal investigations.On one hand,a comparison is often required between the soil on a suspect’s shoes/clothes/tools and that collected from the crime scene so as to match their properties of the materials extracted from the soil of both sides above,indicating whether the suspect went/involved to the crime scene.On the other hand,the likely provenance of certain soil is usually urgent to answer in order to narrow the investigation scope.Forensic geology has been developed long in many countries like Britain,America and Japan,being already well studied and applied in lots of cases.However,forensic geology in China has not yet been equivalently recognized among forensic community,with only some researches done before and sporadic utilization.Therefore,great efforts should be devoted to carry out and improve the application of forensic geology into practice.Especially,emphasis should be focused on building up databases relating to basic soil materials of certain areas so that a key forensic comparison can be made quickly and accurately.