Raman spectroscopy: a powerful tool for geological studies

Andrea Schito

Dipartimento di Scienze, Sezione di Geologia, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, L.go S. Leonardo Murialdo 1, Roma, Italy

Raman spectroscopy has shown in the last year to be a suitable tool for many different fields in Heart Sciences. This technique takes his name from the Nobel Prize C. Raman that first observed in 1928 the inelastic scattering during the irradiation of a sample by an intense monochromatic laser beam. The “Raman scattering” is due to various elementary excitations where the energy is lost or gained during the scattering process. For this reason Raman spectra can be used as “fingerprint” for different materials.

First applications of Raman spectroscopy in geological studies come from gemmology and mineralogy since it provide a strong no-destructive method particularly suitable in the analyses of  precious and unique materials. Nevertheless, nowadays it is applied in many different fields comprising volcanology, petrography, sedimentary geology and planetary sciences.

In this presentation will be explored the different applications of Raman spectroscopy to geological studies highlighting the main innovations and advances that it brought.

A particular focus will be given to the impact of this technology in the study on the evolution of sedimentary basins passing from provenance studies  to the assessment of thermal maturity of sediments by means of the analyses of dispersed organic matter.