Pretreatment technique for siderite removal for organic carbon isotope and C:N ratio analysis in geological samples

A method for the removal of siderite from geological samples to determine organic carbon isotope compositions using elemental analysis isotope ratio mass spectrometry is presented which includes calculations for % organic carbon in samples that contain diagenetic carbonate. The proposed method employs in situ acidification of geological samples with 6 N HCl and silver capsule sample holders and was tested on modern peach leaf samples (NIST 1547) and ancient lacustrine samples from Valles Caldera, New Mexico. The in situ acidification technique eliminates potential errors associated with the removal of soluble organic material using standard acid decanting techniques and allows for removal of the less soluble siderite, which is not efficiently removed using vapor acidification techniques. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.