Forensic Soil Evidence Collection Training Video Now Available

Credit: University of Kentucky

Videographer Brian Volland of the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment records a sampling technique performed by FBI Geologist-Forensic Examiner Ian Saginor for the training video.

The Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) for Forensic Science's Geological Materials Subcommittee, in collaboration with the University of Kentucky, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the IUGS-Initiative on Forensic Geology have developed a training video to help educate law enforcement and crime scene professionals on how to collect soil and other geological evidence. 

Soil and other geological materials can prove to be valuable in criminal investigations and can help to link evidence to a suspect with similar soil on his or her shoes or clothing, from tools, or on a vehicle used in a crime.

The training video, produced in the fall of 2019, is intended to accompany a draft collection guide developed by OSAC’s Geological Methods Subcommittee. This guide, Standard Guide for Collection of Soils and Other Geological Evidence for Criminal Forensic Applications, describes the best practices for documenting, collecting, packaging, and preserving soil and other geological evidence items at crime scenes, alibi locations and reference locations.

“OSAC documents typically have a targeted audience of forensic laboratory staff rather than field personnel. Therefore, we believed the collection guide needed to be translated to a format easily accessible to field personnel,” said Andrew Bowen the Chair of OSAC’s Geological Materials Subcommittee. 

In the fall o ..

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