Selenium has been determined in sixty five geological reference materials of different origins by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. Samples were decomposed with a mixture of nitric and hydrofluoric acids. Selenium was reduced to SeIV with hydrochloric acid, and then fixed and separated from the matrix on thiol cotton. After digestion of the thiol cotton in hot nitric acid, the Se concentration was measured using palladium and magnesium nitrates as a matrix modifier. The limit of determination was 0.02 μg g−1, the precision of the results (relative standard deviation of 3 to 8 replicates) varied from 2.6 to 17.7% with an average of 7.9% in the range 0.02‐42.7 μg g−1 and was similar to the value obtained for synthetic samples. Our results are in good agreement with available literature values.

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