Transport processes trace elements

Ecologically, copper is a trace element essential to many plants and animals. However, high levels of copper in soil can be directly toxic to certain soil microorganisms and can disrupt important microbial processes in soil, such as nitrogen and phosphorus cycling. Copper is typically found in the environment as a solid metal in soils and soil sediment in surface water. There is no evidence that biotransformation processes have a significant bearing on the fate and transport of copper in water. 

Soil solution is the aqueous phase of soil. It is in the pore space of soils and includes soil water and soluble constituents, such as dissolved inorganic ions and dissolved organic solutes. Soil solution accommodates and nourishes many surface and solution reactions and soil processes, such as soil formation and decomposition of organic matter. Soil solution provides the source and a channel for movement and transport of nutrients and trace elements and regulates their bioavailability in soils to plants. Trace element uptake by organisms and transport in natural systems typically occurs through the solution phase (Traina and Laperche, 1999). 

Hydrogeochemical processes governing the origin, transport, and fate of major and trace elements from mine wastes and mineralized rock... 

Tomascak PB, Banner JL (1998) Lithium isotope hydrogeochemistry a multi-collector ICP-MS study. Geochemical Perspectives on Environmental Processes New Theoretical and Analytical Approaches to Sources, Transport, and Bioavailability of Trace Elements, St. Louis, Conf Abst Tomascak PB, Langmuir CH (1999) Lithium isotope variability in MORB. EOS Trans, Am Geophys Union 80 F1086-1087... 

Trace elements are delivered to the ocean by atmospheric, or aeolian, processes in both particulate and soluble forms. Most of the aeolian particles entering the ocean are less than 10 pm in size and are referred to as aerosols. Aeolian transport of particles occurs when winds, such as the Trades, pick up small particles from the land s surface and carry them over the ocean. Some trace elements, such as mercury, have a high enough vapor pressure that they are present as atmospheric gases. Still others are ejected during volcanic eruptions in either particulate or gaseous form. 

Sinking particles transport trace elements to the sediments. Once in the sediments, chemical reactions can resolubilize a significant fraction of the particulate metals. This process is termed diagenetic remobilization and is the subject of the next chapter. The resolubilized elements can diffuse across the sediment-water interface into the deep zone. 

In recent years, tremendous progress has been achieved in the analysis of the isotope composition of important trace compounds in the atmosphere. The major elements - nitrogen, oxygen, carbon - continually break apart and recombine in a multitude of photochemical reactions, which have the potential to produce isotope fractionations (Kaye 1987). Isotope analysis is increasingly employed in studies of the cycles of atmospheric trace gases e.g., CH4 and N2O, which can give insights into sources and sinks and transport processes of these compounds. The rationale is that various sources have characteristic isotope ratios and that sink processes are accompanied by isotope fractionation. 

Interest in trace element speciation studies in natural waters has increased considerably during the last decade. It has become apparent that data on total concentrations of any element rather than on individual well defined chemical entities, are often inadequate to identify transport mechanisms, ultimate fate and toxicity of particular elements to organisms. A study of the different trace metal species and their relative distribution will assist in understanding the chemical processes that take place in the highly reactive estuarine zone and in the open sea. These processes include the rate at which chemical processes take place, the participation in geochemical processes (precipitation/dissolution, adsorption/desorption). 

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