The name of the discipline is much younger than its practice, which has been conducted for decades in such forms as investigating the source of contaminants in the environment and occasionally using the findings as evidence for reducing pollution or prosecuting offenders. Practitioners outline methods that have worked well, after an introductory chapter traces the course of a typical environmental case from inception to court testimony. Other topics include the chemical fingerprinting of petroleum hydrocarbons, biological communities as a forensic tool in marine environments, and multivariate and geostatistical methods. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)