Microprobe investigations of patterned natural and petrified biological objects

The possibilities of examining patterned natural and mineralised biological objects, using X-ray synchrotron facilities, complemented by electron microprobe and optical analysis are reviewed. The objects under investigation include: petrified wood, speleothems, corals, shells of molluscs and remains of belemnites. All those objects have important information embedded in their patterned structure. Using microprobe type devices, one can disentangle the internal structure of the objects and reveal the hidden information. This information can be of great significance to climatic, geological, chronological, and ecological studies and specific examples in each category are shown, taken from our work and compared with the results of other authors where necessary. The added value of the X-ray and electron microprobe measurements in relation to the mass-spectrometric methods is shown for the specific cases. In addition, the results concern materials where organic and even biological material is combined with inorganic matter, like calcite, silica varieties and metal oxides. The investigation of such patterned objects as goethitized wood, composed of goethite, calcite and organic matter should therefore be of interest to materials scientists, synthesizing composite materials