Distribution of metals in mechanical fractions of soils from a lake catchment in Venezuela

✍ Scribed by José Luis Mogollón'; Claudio Bifano; Brian E. Davies

• Book ID: 104641238
• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 892 KB
• Volume: 17
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1573-2983
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00146712

✦ Synopsis

Soil samples were collected from both the surface and at depth from the lowlands around Lake Valencia and from the adjacent mountains. This paper reports results for AI, Ca, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, M9, Mn, Na, Ni, Pb and Zn in mechanical fractions of the soils. Lowland soils, developed on lacustrine sediments, show a predominance of medium-to fine-grain size fractions whereas the shallow mountain soils show the highest percentage of particles in the coarse to medium fractions. Concentrations of most of the elements investigated increased toward finer particle sizes.The generally higher metal concentrations in lowland soils compared with mountain soils are consistent with release by weathering in the uplands and accumulation in the lowlands. The presence of carbonates derived from ubiquitous shelly material in the lowland soils may explain increases of Ca and Mg in labile fractions. In the lowland area, there is little evidence for the transloeation of metals in the soil profiles, despite the high rainfall of a tropical climate, and the calcareous nature of these soils could account for the immobility of metals.