The advanced soil geochemical atlas of England and Wales

The total concentration of different elements in the soil – its geochemistry – has implications for both human and animal health. For example, soil geochemistry influences the availability of a range of essential and potentially toxic elements which has implications for their uptake by grazing animals and crops. Understanding the natural or geogenic concentrations of elements in the soil can help to determine whether, and the extent to which, soil may have been contaminated by anthropogenic activities. Much of the variation in the concentration of major and trace elements in the soil is accounted for by the parent material from which the soil formed (Rawlins et al., 2003). The analyses presented in this – the advanced atlas are for those soil samples collected for the National Soil Inventory (NSI) by the Soil Survey of England and Wales (now the National Soil Resources Institute, Cranfield University, UK) as described in McGrath and Loveland (1992) in the Soil Geochemical Atlas of England and Wales. The geochemical analyses presented in the original atlas were for a series of 17 elements. The advanced atlas presents analyses for a total of 53 elements which includes the original 17 elements. A periodic table shows those elements for which analyses are available. The geochemical maps, descriptions of the spatial distribution of each element and summary statistics can be accessed through clicking the symbol for each element.