Quick
Search: 		  
advanced search
 GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help 
Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis GSW 2008 Users' Group Meeting
JOURNAL HOME HELP CONTACT PUBLISHER SUBSCRIBE ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis; May 2008; v. 8; no. 2; p. 139-148; DOI: 10.1144/1467-7873/07-155
© 2008 Geological Society of London
This Article
Right arrow Figures Only
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Åström, M. E.
Right arrow Articles by Salminen, R.
GeoRef
Right arrow GeoRef Citation

Original Article

Niobium in boreal stream waters and brackish-water sediments

Mats E. Åström1, Pasi Peltola1, Joonas J. Virtasalo2, Aarno T. Kotilainen3 and Reijo Salminen3

1 Kalmar University, School of Pure and Applied Natural Sciences, S-39182 Kalmar, Sweden (mats.astrom{at}hik.se)
2 University of Turku, Department of Geology, FI-20014 Turku, Finland
3 Geological Survey of Finland, FI-02151 Espoo, Finland

The focus is on ‘non-detrital’ Nb in boreal stream waters (dissolved fraction and acid-available particulate fraction) and brackish-water/lacustrine sediments (aqua regia extractable fraction). Spatial patterns, temporal trends and speciation experiments all point to dissolved humic substances and colloidal Fe as the main control of Nb concentrations in stream waters. In addition, clay-silt deposits and/or ore deposits may be responsible for producing local streamwater Nb anomalies. In groundwater in overburden (glacial till) overlying Proterozoic granitoids, dissolved Nb concentrations were about an order of magnitude higher than in stream waters and strongly correlated with dissolved Fe. In the brackish-water sediments, the Nb concentrations (1.33–4.20 ppm) were higher than in the lacustrine ones (0.25–0.53 ppm). To explain this, we assessed the potential role of organic material, biological processes, sulphide mineralogy, silicate mineralogy and input factors. However, none of them could satisfactorily explain the observed Nb geochemical features. Although Nb can be considered relatively immobile, the data presented in this paper show that under certain conditions its abundance in the aquatic environment increases.

KEYWORDS: niobium, stream water, boreal, sediment, humus, speciation






JOURNAL HOME HELP CONTACT PUBLISHER SUBSCRIBE ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright © 2008 by Geological Society of London