Petrographic and geochemical analyses to characterise the source of built historical natural stones — a case study of the volcanic stones from historical quarries and Baoguosi Temple in the city of Ningbo, China

Abstract Characterising and sourcing natural stones are essential for not only understanding the historical information carried by heritage buildings cultural sites, but also providing necessary data restoration conservations. Petrographic analyses polarised microscopy, along with integrated chemical acquired inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, allowed us to ascertain compositions of stone materials. In this paper it is applied on samples collected from quarries “three famous (Meiyuanshi-, Xiaoxishi-, Dayinshi-stone)” in Ningbo Sumeru platform main hall Baoguosi Temple (Ningbo, Zhejiang, China). Comparison petrographic features, major trace elements studied indicated that they all tuffs different characteristics origin. Moreover, we were able confirm made Meiyuanshi-stone. The results have demonstrated suitability approach present a practicable solution other buildings.