Forensic soil science represents a newly-developed discipline of soil science, and has matured to the extent that well-defined questions and successful crime scene investigations can be answered in increasingly refined ways. The systematic forensic soil examination approach described in this paper uses soil morphology (e.g. color, consistency, texture and structure), mineralogy (X-ray powder diffraction) and chemistry (e.g. based primarily upon mid-infrared spectroscopy/diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform (DRIFT) analyses).Forensic soil characterization usually combines the descriptive and analytical steps for rapid characterization of whole soil samples for screening, and detailed characterization and quantification of composite and individual soil particles after sample selection, size fractionation and detailed mineralogical and organic matter analyses using advanced analytical methods. X-ray powder diffraction methods are arguably the most significant for both qualitative and quantitative analyses of solid materials in forensic soil science.