Dear Dave,

I would like to remind you the extremely important contribution that mineralogy, petrology and geochemistry have given to archaeometry and the conservation of cultural heritage, namely to the the characterization of building materials (leading to the determination of the provenance of artefactc, of their deterioration causes and machanisms, etc.), ceramic and vitreous materials, metallic ores and artifacts, etc.
Our disciplines are currently applied tothese topic on a large scale in Italy.

Best regards

Lorenzo Lazzarini
Prof. of Applied petrography,
Faculty of Architecture
Universita Iuav of Veniceł
Venice, Italy