Stable Isotopes helping hand for Scotch whisky

One of the most interesting and unusual presentations in the EGU meeting session was a poster by geochemist Wolfram Meier-Augenstein.

The work of The James Hutton Institute’s groundbreaking Stable Isotopes laboratory has been highlighted in the well-known and influential Earth Magazine. Earth Blogger Carolyn Gramling was in Vienna, Austria, at the European Geophysical Union meeting recently. She told her readers that one session in particular caught her attention – how geoscientists are creating new maps and tracking mechanisms to help law enforcement officials.

Carolyn blogged: “The potential for using stable isotopes in forensics is certainly of interest to police. One of the most interesting and unusual presentations in the EGU meeting session was a poster by geochemist Wolfram Meier-Augenstein (one of the conveners of the session) of the James Hutton Institute in Dundee, Scotland, geochemist Helen Kemp, also of the James Hutton Institute, and other colleagues.

“For example, the James Hutton Institute team has also proposed a clever isotopic solution to a very serious problem in Scotland: detecting counterfeit Scotch whisky (that is, so-called “Scotch” made anywhere else in the world), using hydrogen and oxygen isotopes to find the fakes. The idea, Kemp says, is that ideally, the key ingredient in Scotch whisky – Scotland’s water – would have a distinct isotopic pattern.”

More information

Read Earth Blogger Carolyn Gramling's full dispatch

Mylnefield Isotope Signatures website