Significance of Diatoms in Diagnosis of Drowning Deaths: A Review

Abstract

Diatom test is an important tool in diagnosis death in drowning cases. As the typical features of ante-mortem drowning disappeared very rapidly with commencement of putrefaction and hence diatom test plays an important role for diagnosis and confirmation of drowning deaths. Diatoms have number of characteristic like their widespread presence in water, high diversity in species, habitat specificity and have a good potential for preservation and thus this group can be used in forensic geosciences for criminal investigations. Extraction and identification of diatoms present in the tissue samples can be used as supportive evidence in drowning and also for site specific diatoms. Temperature and pH variations also play important role in the distribution of diatoms in a particular location. Diatoms species detection in both water and tissue samples gave a reliability of the diatom test in solving cases pertaining to drowning deaths. Hence the possible means and methods must be practiced on a regular basis by the forensic examiner as well practitioners so that new possibilities must always be explored for extraction and identification of diatoms in near future. This paper reviews the recent year’s progress on diatom test and its application in forensic science.