1996 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Fate of contaminants in the soil environment: metal contaminants
Authors : Philip A. Helmke, Ravendra Naidu
Published in: Contaminants and the Soil Environment in the Australasia-Pacific Region
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Included in: Professional Book Archive
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The 90 chemical elements that occur naturally in soils have a very wide range of abundance. Ninety-nine percent of the mass of most soils is made up of only eight elements: H, C, O, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Fe. The remaining elements exist in such small proportions in typical soils that in most situations they would be regarded as insignificant impurities. Yet nearly all of the elements are important to us in some way. Thirty elements are essential to life.