Dr. Ir. Alicia Vanham-Meert

After graduating with a master in chemical and materials engineering in the Bruface program from the VUB in 2014. She then pursued a MSc in Archaeological Science at the university of Oxford and graduated in 2015. She continued her academic pursuits by completing a PhD at the KU Leuven and the VUB under the supervision of Prof. Degryse and Prof. Claeys on the development of non-destructive analysis methods for the study of archaeological objects, which she completed in 2019. Since then she’s collaborated on various projects applying (micro-)XRF, (LA-)ICP-MS and Sr, Nd and Pb isotopic analysis on various materials such as timbers (post-doc at the university of Copenhagen 2019-2020), metals and mostly glasses (back at the KU-Leuven)

Articles dans des revues avec comité de lecture

2023

Ni-rich mineral nepouite explains the exceptional green color of speleothems

Abstract Speleothems are secondary mineral structures typically found in karstic caves and usually composed of calcite or aragonite. Despite being naturally white, some might exhibit unusual colors, such as blue, black, red, yellow or green. The causes of these exceptional colorations are poorly understood, especially for green speleothems, which are barely reported. Here we describe the occurrence of the green Ni-bearing serpentine nepouite in green aragonite and calcite speleothems, in the Aven du Marcou (Hérault, France). Nepouite is mainly found as flat lamellar crystals in the outer rim of green speleothems and crystallized alongside radially grown aragonite crystals. This supports nepouite beginning to crystallize recently, due to a change in the chemical composition of the water. Nepouite also exhibits extensive substitution between Ni, Mg and Zn. The various elements responsible for nepouite precipitation are thought to come from the weathering of pyrite crystals in the overlying rocks, which is consistent with the pH conditions of the cave and the Al-free composition of nepouite. This study explains the crystallization mechanisms and stability conditions of silicate minerals in colored caves.

Provenancing 16th and 17th century CE building timbers in Denmark-combining dendroprovenance and Sr isotopic analysis

Dendrochronology (tree-ring analysis) allows us to precisely date and identify the origin of timber from historic contexts. However, reference datasets to determine the origin can include timber of non-local origin. Therefore, we have applied Sr isotopic on timbers from three buildings in Jutland, Denmark, mostly dating from the late 16 th and early 17 th centuries CE to improve and refine the provenance identification. The dendrochronology suggested that some timbers analysed were imported from the Swedish side of Øresund/Kattegat while others were local, and others again might be from south Norway. By adding the Sr isotopic analysis, a far more detailed interpretation of the origin of these timbers can be presented for non-Danish timbers. In this paper we suggest that Danish ports in the provinces of Halland and Skåne played a major role in the timber trade between the Danish and Swedish parts of the Danish kingdom. For Danish timbers dendroprovenancing proved better than Sr isotopic analysis. Furthermore, a small number of Sr isotopic analyses were performed to contribute to the base-line along the Göta-river in Southern-Sweden.

2021

Comparison of Minimally Invasive Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry Approaches for Strontium Isotopic Analysis of Medieval Stained Glass with Elevated Rubidium and Rare-Earth Element Concentrations

2020

Determining the Sr isotopic composition of waterlogged wood - Cleaning more is not always better

Sasanian copper and billon coins from the collections of the Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels, Belgium—insights using semi-quantitative analysis by μXRF

2019

Antimony as a raw material in ancient metal and glass making: provenancing Georgian LBA metallic Sb by isotope analysis