Geochemical summary statistics for 18 elements in natural mateiials horn 117 landscape units have been compiled based on field and laboratory studies since 1958. Each landscape unit is brie f ly identified as to kind and location, and the expected concentration for one or more elements is gi\en together with factors indicating the degree of observed \ariation in the stuch and the degree of laboratory or "analytical" variation. Also listed are the observed lange and the total number of element analyses made in each study. The data on which these summaries are based have three attributes in common: They represent "large-scale" 01 legional geochemical studies; they represent background or "oidinary" natural geochemical \ariation; and they were collected according to objective sampling designs. The summaries clearly demonstrate the wide diveisity to be expected in elemental properties of landscape units and suggest that published element abundances for bioacl categoiies like1 "soil" or "carbonate rock" may be misleading. Fl F2 STATISTICAL STUDIES IN FIELD GEOCHEMISTRY One such study merits special mention. The U.S. Geological Survey has recently completed a geochemical survey of the State of Missouri, many aspects of which are unique to environmental geochemistry. It not only is a survey of a broad, geologically diverse area, but it was undertaken partly in support of active, trace-element related epidemiologic studies sponsored by the University of Missouri. Moreover, we think it is the first study of its kind in which an attempt has been made to characterize rocks, waters, soils, and plants chemically by a unified team approach using (and in part testing) efficient and objective sampling designs. Connor and others (1972) described this work in a preliminary way. Details of the study are available in a series of limited-distribution progress reports (U.S. Geological Survey, 1972a-f, 1973). The data tabulated in the present report represent the work of many people. Principal investigators are listed with a short description of each study, and authorship is cited for all published data. All unpublished data are preliminary. The reader is cautioned that some of the data summaries given here may be subject to minor revision. The sampling designs, data analyses, and geochemical summaries on which this report is based are statistical in nature; extended discussions of these subjects can be found in Miesch (1967a, b, 1972), Connor and others (1972), and Connor and Myers (1973). A proper list of acknowledgments for this report would comprise more than 100 people including computer programmers, specialists in data handling, and assistants in the field, laboratory, and office. Unquestionably, the most important contributors are the chemists, spectrographers, and other laboratory personnel who catalogued, prepared, and measured the concentrations of up to 69 elements in more than 8,000 samples of rocks, soils, and plant material over a period of more than 10 years.

Highlight: Copper-to-molybdenum ratios in all but two sweetclover samples collected on spoil at eight coal mines in the Northern Great Piains ranged from 0.449 to 51. Ratios of 51 or less in forage are reported to cause moiybdenosis, a nutritional disease occurring in molybdic regions of the world. Therefore, if the major forage on coalmine spoils is sweetclover or other species with similar Cu:Mo ratios, molybdenosis may be expected to occur in cattle and sheep grazing in these areas.

Geochemical summary statistics for 59 elements in rocks, soils, stream sediments, mine tailings, and native and cultivated plants are given for 25 study areas having important deposits of coal or oil shale. Each study area is briefly described as to location, study objectives, and kind of material sampled, and references are given to published reports of the study. The concentrations of elements in the sampling media are given for suites of samples as summary data that include detection ratios, means, deviations, laboratory error, and observed ranges of concentration. Studies of certain elements in soils that exist in forms available to plants were conducted using several extraction procedures, and element concentrations as well as other parameters of the extracts were determined. The concentrations of as many as 40 elements were determined in samples of surface waters, in addition to the gross alpha and beta counts, and measurements of alkalinity, dissolved solids, hardness, pH, sodiumadsorption ratios, and specific conductance of these samples. The mineralogy is summarized for outcrop samples of shale and sandstone; of core samples of fine-grained rocks, sandstone, siltstone plus shale, and dark shale; of stream sediments; and of soils used in extraction studies. This report emphasizes changes in the geochemical environment that have accompanied coal mining in arid regions and suggests, through estimates of background element abundances, the geochemical effects to be expected in areas not yet mined. The elements in plants that grow on mine spoil and reclaimed soil of mined areas indicate that care should be taken to insure proper utilization of these areas. conduct studies on private property by land owners, mining and power plant companies, and tribal councils was essential and was greatly appreciated. The assistance of many State and Federal agencies in providing guidance and advice on field studies was also of great value. Within our own organization, the services of computer programmers, specialists in data handling, and assistants in the field, laboratory, and office were invaluable. Special acknowledgment and appreciation are extended to the chemists, spectrographers, and other laboratory personnel who catalogued and pre-109 r' METHODS OF STUDY 50 42°N EBRASKA ; i 100 200 KILOMETERS '00 2QGfV1!LES'i STUDY NO. 2 Chemical and mineralogical analyses of core samples from Hanging Woman Creek, Montana By Todd K. Hinkley and Richard J. Ebens Cored overburden rock of the Fort Union Formation at the Hanging Woman Creek potential coal mine site, Big Horn County, Mont., was collected in 1976-77 and was analyzed for bulk chemistry and mineralogy (fig 3). Cores (size "NX") from the five holes, drilled through all overburden and the thick Anderson coal (one deeper hole was drilled through the lower Dietz coal), ranged in length from 130 to 260 ft (40 to 80 m). Holes were spaced so that the minimum and maximum distances between holes were about 1 km and 4 km, respectively. Four samples of each of three rock types were t...

Alluvium, loess, glacial till, and carbonate residuum are the four most prominent surficial geologic materials in the landscape of Missouri. Of these, loess and residuum are the most widespread and constitute the "parent" upon which most of the State's soils are developed. Geochemically, loess is one of the most uniform geologic materials in the State, and residuum one of the most heterogeneous.Regional geochemical variation of loess consists principally of weak, but statistically significant, changes in concentration with distance away from-the Missouri River drainage, which is the presumed source of much of the loess in the northern half of the State. Elements observed to increase away from the source are aluminum, arsenic, cobalt, copper, fluorine, gallium, iron, lithium, scandium, strontium, vanadium, and ytterbium; elements observed to decrease are barium, calcium, carbon, magnesium, manganese, silicon, sodium, phosphorus, potassium, and zirconium. The first element suite reflects an increasing clay content away from source, and the second indicates a decreasing dolomite, feldspar, zircon, apatite, and quartz content away from source. The concentration trends increase or decrease exponentially with distance.Regional geochemical variation of residuum reflects concentration changes from one major area of bedrock to another. This variation is statistically significant for aluminum, beryllium, chromium, copper, iron, gallium, lithium, manganese, scandium, selenium, silicon, vanadium, yttrium, ytterbium, and zinc and to a large extent reflects a greater clay content in residuum over areas of Mississippian bedrock (rocks of Osagean and Meramecian age) than in residuum over areas of pre-Mississippian bedrock (including the Bonneterre, Potosi, Gasconade, Roubidoux, and Jefferson City Formations). The more aluminous residuum also appears to be higher in the rare-earth elements cerium, dysprosium, gadolinium, holmium, praseodymium, and samarium. This bedrock-related variability suggests that the residuum is at least in part truly residual, although the predictive power of residuum geochemistry as a guide to the immediately underlying rock geochemistry is low. On average, it appears that six thicknesses of parent carbonate are required to produce a unit thickness of residuum.Samples of residuum collected in the State's lead districts were not unusually high in base metals, but many samples from the Washington County barite district were anomalously high in copper, lead, mercury, neodymium, and zinc, as well as barium; some appeared to be anomalously-low in cadmium. The barite ore mined from residuum in the district is generally low in accessory elements except for a percent or so of aluminum and about half a percent of strontium.The geochemical differences between loess and residuum and the differences among residua overlying areas of different bedrock in southern Missouri impart a complex regional geochemical pattern to the surficial geologic deposits of the State. These patterns are difficult to show on maps, however...

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