M. Birke

M. Birke
Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe | BGR · Soil as a Resource - Properties and Dynamics; Geochemistry

PhD

About

173
Publications
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Publications

Publications (173)
Article
About a century ago, B was recognised as an essential element for the normal growth of plants and terrestrial organisms. Limitations for plant development have been recognised in agricultural systems, particularly in highly weathered soil. Boron is rarely analysed in whole rock or soil analysis, as it requires specific analytical techniques. It is...
Article
The chemical composition of soil represents to a large extent the primary mineralogy and geochemistry of the source bedrock, the effects of pre- and post-depositional weathering and element mobility, either by leaching or mineral sorting with the addition of secondary products such as clays. Agricultural soil in Europe (0–20 cm, 33 countries, 5.6 m...
Article
Agricultural soil (Ap-horizon, 0–20 cm) samples were collected from 33 European countries as part of the GEMAS (GEochemical Mapping of Agricultural and grazing land Soil) soilmapping project. The Mg data derived from total concentrations (XRF) and two acid digestion methods, aqua regia (AR) and Mobile Metal Ion (MMI®), were used to provide an overv...
Chapter
Progress in geochemical mapping, since it began in the 1950s, has been due principally to the development of new and improved instrumental techniques, providing better sensitivities for more elements more rapidly. Analytical requirements for the compilation of a global geochemical database, designed to facilitate firstly the establishment of the...
Article
The project Geochemical Mapping of Agricultural and grazing land Soil (GEMAS) was carried out in 33 European countries (5.6 million km2) with an average sampling density of 1 site per 2500 km2. The main objective was to assess the chemical quality of productive soils. All collected soil samples were prepared in the same laboratory, and subsequently...
Article
Carbonate rocks are very soluble and export elements in dissolved form, and precipitation of secondary phases can occur at a large scale. They leave a strong chemical signature in soil that can be quantified and classified by geochemical indices, which are useful for evaluating chemical weathering trends (e.g., the Chemical Index of Alteration CIA...
Article
The project Geochemical Mapping of Agricultural and grazing land Soil (GEMAS) was carried out in 33 European countries (5.6 million km2) with an average sampling density of 1 site per 2500 km2. The main objective was to assess the chemical quality of productive soils. All collected soil samples were prepared in the same laboratory, and subsequently...
Article
Coastal lagoons are complex environments threatened by natural and anthropogenic stressors. Here, we tested the effectiveness of combining physical, geochemical and chemical measurements with biomarker data obtained in field-exposed marine mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) as a biomonitoring strategy for a highly pressured lagoon (Pialassa Baiona...
Article
Agricultural soil (Ap-horizon, 0–20 cm) samples were collected from 33 European countries as part of the GEMAS (GEochemical Mapping of Agricultural and grazing land Soil) soilmapping project. The Mg data derived from total concentrations (XRF) and two acid digestion methods, aqua regia (AR) and Mobile Metal Ion (MMI® ), were used to provide an over...
Article
Agricultural soil (Ap-horizon, 0–20 cm) samples were collected from 33 European countries as part of the GEMAS (GEochemical Mapping of Agricultural and grazing land Soil) soil-mapping project. The Mg data derived from total concentrations (XRF) and two acid digestion methods, aqua regia (AR) and Mobile Metal Ion (MMI®), were used to provide an over...
Article
The demand for ‘high-tech’ element resources (e.g., rare earth elements, lithium, platinum group elements) has increased with their continued consumption in developed countries and the emergence of developing economies. To provide a sound knowledge base for future generations, it is necessary to identify the spatial distribution of critical element...
Article
This study is the first attempt to evaluate occurrence, distribution and potential health impacts of As at a national scale in Italy. In various environmental matrices, As geochemical distribution was investigated and carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risks were assessed with respect to different exposure routes and age groups. Both deterministic a...
Article
Total organic carbon (TOC) contents in agricultural soil are presently receiving increased attention, not only because of their relationship to soil fertility, but also due to the sequestration of organic carbon in soil to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. In this research, the spatial patterns of TOC and its relationship with pH at the European sca...
Chapter
There are numerous classification systems which attempt to categorize mineral waters according to their suitability to contribute to the mineral nutrition of humans, pharmaceutical significance, and others. The categorization of classes within every classification system is based on measurable features; the attribution of water to a class reveals r...
Article
Full-text available
Klassifikationen fassen Individuen mit gemeinsamen Merkmalen zusammen. Im Fall von Wässern sind das insbesondere Merkmale der stratigraphischen und hydrogeologischen Herkunft sowie der hydrogeochemischen Typisierung. Im Beitrag wird die Frage untersucht, welche Informationen über Elementgehalte in Brunnenwässern aus der stratigraphischen Zuordnung...
Article
Agricultural soil (Ap-horizon, 0–20 cm) samples were collected in Europe (33 countries, 5.6 million km2) as part of the GEMAS (GEochemical Mapping of Agricultural and grazing land Soil) soil-mapping project. The GEMAS survey area includes diverse groups of soil parent materials with varying geological history, a wide range of climate zones, and la...
Article
A geochemical surfacewater survey, focused on 2nd and 3rd order streams, was carried out in the Oppdal/Berkåk area in Norway. Stream water was collected at 168 sample sites, covering a 1500-km ² survey area. Electrical conductivity, pH, alkalinity and temperature were recorded in the field. Electrical conductivity and pH were also determined once m...
Article
A reliable overview of measured concentrations of TC, TN and TS, TOC/TN ratios, and their regional distribution patterns in agricultural soil at the continental scale and based on measured data has been missing - despite much previous work on local and the European scales. Detection and mapping of natural (ambient) background element concentrations...
Article
This study demonstrates the use of digital image processing for the spatial pattern recognition and characterisation of Ni concentrations in topsoil in Europe. Moving average smoothing was applied to the TIN-interpolated grid model to suppress small irregularities. Digital image processing was applied then to the grid. Several NE-SW, E-W and NW-SE...
Article
The GEMAS (geochemical mapping of agricultural soil) project collected 2108 Ap horizon soil samples from regularly ploughed fields in 33 European countries, covering 5.6 million km2. The <2 mm fraction of these samples was analysed for 53 elements by ICP-MS and ICP-AES, following a HNO3/HCl/H2O (modified aqua regia) digestion. Results are used here...
Article
Classifications group items according to common characteristics into categories. For well waters, these are in particular characteristics of stratigraphic and hydrogeological origin, and hydrogeochemical typecast. It was the objective of this study to analyse if additional information on the elemental composition of well waters can be derived from...
Article
Classifications group items according to common characteristics. For well waters, these are in particular characteristics of stratigraphic and hydrogeological origin, and hydrogeochemical typecast. It was the objective of this study to analyse, to which extent hydrogeological classifications may yield additional information on the elemental composi...
Article
In der vorliegenden Studie wurde untersucht, inwieweit eine hydrogeochemische Klassifizierung von Brunnen-wässern zusätzliche Informationen über Elemente in den Wässern liefert, die nicht zur eigentlichen Klassifizierung herangezogen wurden und damit einen informativen Mehrwert darstellen. Zu diesem Zweck wurden in dieser dritten von insgesamt vier...
Article
Multivariate statistische Verfahren sind bestens geeignet, um Strukturen in großen Datensätzen zu erkennen. Brunnenwässer enthalten in Abhängigkeit von ihrer stra-tigraphischen und hydrogeologischen Herkunft sowie hydrogeochemischen Zuordnung eine große Anzahl an chemischen Elementen in unterschiedlichsten Konzen-trationen. Das Institut für Pflanze...
Article
Plots of cumulative distribution functions (CDF) are a simple but powerful exploratory data analysis (EDA) tool to evaluate and compare statistical data distributions. Here, empirical CDF plots are used to compare results of four large (476-884 samples) national-to continental-scale inorganic water chemistry data sets: (1) European surface water, (...
Article
The data represent the first available data set on platinum group element (PGE) levels in Berlin topsoil. In 2013, over 100 topsoil samples (0–20 cm) were collected in the inner city of Berlin. The PGEs in topsoil samples were analysed by ICP-MS after a trace-matrix separation. The results were compared to analyses of PGEs in Berlin topsoil collect...
Article
Tree bark was used as a biomonitor to evaluate past atmospheric contamination in and around Stassfurt in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Forty-three outer and inner bark samples, predominantly oak (Quercus), were collected. For comparison purposes, bark of the same tree species was collected in reference areas in Saxony-Anhalt and nationwide in Germany. Co...
Article
Full-text available
Urban soil is generally contaminated to a variable degree depending on its proximity to contamination sources. Traffic is one of the main sources of urban contamination; lead (Pb) from the use of leaded petrol, zinc (Zn) and cadmium (Cd) from tyre wear, antimony (Sb) from break pads, and the platinum group Nelements (PGEs) from the wear of catalyti...
Article
Full-text available
An ‘Atlas’ is a collection of maps usually published in a book form. A ‘Geochemical Atlas’ is a thematic special purpose atlas with maps describing the geographical distribution of chemical elements and other physico-chemical parameters in different natural sample media, such as stream sediment, overbank or floodplain sediment, stream water, ground...
Article
This study aimed at evaluating the environmental quality of a coastal lagoon (Pialassa Piomboni, NW-Adriatic, Italy) by combining analyses of biomarkers of environmental stress and bioaccumulation of contaminants in marine mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) transplanted for 28 days to six selected sites. Assessed biomarkers encompassed lysosomal e...
Article
Over 4000 agricultural and grazing land soil samples were collected for the “Geochemical Mapping of Agricultural and Grazing Land Soil of Europe” (GEMAS) project carried out by the EuroGeoSurveys Geochemistry Expert Group. The samples were collected in 33 European countries, covering 5.6 million km2 at a density of 1 sample site per 2500 km2. All s...
Article
Over 4000 agricultural and grazing land soil samples were collected for the “Geochemical Mapping of Agricultural and Grazing Land Soil of Europe” (GEMAS) project carried out by the EuroGeoSurveys Geochemistry Expert Group. The samples were collected in 33 European countries, covering 5.6 million km² at a density of 1 sample site per 2500 km². All s...
Article
Highly industrialized and urbanized areas can be affected by microcontamination due to the inefficiency of wastewater treatment plants to remove micropollutants from effluents, with the consequence of reversing them totally or only partially undegraded in the environment. Gd, one of the rare earth elements (REE) group, can be considered as a tracer...
Article
Over 4000 soil samples were collected for the “Geochemical Mapping of Agricultural and Grazing Land Soil of Europe” (GEMAS) project carried out by the EuroGeoSurveys Geochemistry Expert Group. Cadmium concentrations are reported for the <2 mm fraction of soil samples from regularly ploughed fields (agricultural soil, Ap, 0–20 cm, N = 2218) and graz...
Article
Agricultural soil (Ap-horizon, 0–20 cm) and grazing land soil (Gr-horizon, 0–10 cm) samples were collected from a large part of Europe (33 countries, 5.6 million km2) as part of the GEMAS (GEochemical Mapping of Agricultural and grazing land Soil) soil mapping project. GEMAS soil data have been used to provide a general view of element mobility and...
Article
Full-text available
Assessing trace metal pollution using feathers has long attracted the attention of ecotoxicologists as a cost-effective and non-invasive biomonitoring method. In order to interpret the concentrations in feathers considering the external contamination due to lithic residue particles, we adopted a novel geochemical approach. We analysed 58 element co...
Article
The mineral exploration industry is used to very high sample densities (100s to 1000s of samples/km2) for geochemical exploration in order to define drill targets. Lately, geoscience organizations in many countries have been geochemically mapping increasingly larger areas at progressively lower sampling densities (1 site/100 to 1 site/18 000 km2)....
Article
Indium is a very rare element, which is usually not reported in geochemical data sets. It is classified as a critical metal, with important applications in the electronics industry, especially in the production of solar panels and liquid-crystal displays (LCDs). Over 4000 samples of agricultural and grazing land soil have been collected for the "Ge...
Article
Full-text available
In the framework of the GEMAS project, 2211 samples of agricultural soil (Ap, 0-20 cm, regularly ploughed fields), and 2118 samples from land under permanent grass cover (Gr, 0-10 cm, grazing land soil) were collected across almost the whole European continent, at a density of 1 sample site/2500 km2, in accordance with a common sampling protocol....
Article
579 tap water samples were collected at the European scale and analysed at a single laboratory for more than 60 parameters. This dataset is analysed here in terms of the spatial and national distribution of the analysed inorganic chemical parameters. The distribution of most parameters is controlled by various artificial and natural factors (geogra...
Article
Partial least squares regression (PLSR) models, using mid-infrared (MIR) diffuse reflectance Fourier transformed (DRIFT) spectra, were used to predict distribution coefficient (Kd) values for selected added soluble metal cations (Ag+, Co2+, Cu2+, Mn2+, Ni2+, Pb2+, Sn4+, and Zn2+) in 4813 soils of the Geochemical Mapping of Agricultural Soils (GEMAS...
Article
Two thousand one hundred and eight agricultural soils (0–20 cm depth) collected at a density of one sample per 2500 km2 under the auspices of the Geochemical Mapping of Agricultural Soils (GEMAS) project over most of the European continent have been analysed using the Mobile Metal Ion (MMI®) partial extraction technique with ICP-MS finish. For a nu...
Article
Partial least squares regression (PLSR) models, using mid-infrared (MIR) diffuse reflectance Fourier-transformed (DRIFT) spectra, were used to predict distribution coefficient (Kd) values for selected added soluble metal cations (Agþ, Co2þ, Cu2þ, Mn2þ, Ni2þ, Pb2þ, Sn4þ, and Zn2þ) in 4813 soils of the Geochemical Mapping of Agricultural Soils (GEMAS...
Article
Indium is a very rare element, which is usually not reported in geochemical data sets. It is classified as a critical metal, with important applications in the electronics industry, especially in the production of solar panels and liquid-crystal displays (LCDs). Over 4000 samples of agricultural and grazing land soil have been collected for the “Ge...
Chapter
1.1 Introduction 21 1.2 Soil – what is it? 21 1.3 Soil – an eco-friendly chemical factory 27 1.4 Does soil always stay the same? 30 1.5 How many soil types are there? 36 1.6 Use of GEMAS data 42
Article
579 tap water samples were collected at the European scale and analysed in a single laboratory for more than 60 parameters. This dataset is evaluated here in terms of the statistical distribution of the analysed parameters and compliance with EU and international drinking water regulations. For most parameters a 99% (or better) degree of compliance...
Article
Full-text available
During 2008 the GEochemical Mapping of Agricultural Soils (GEMAS) project collected 2108 agricultural (ploughed soil, Ap horizon, 0–20 cm) and 2023 grazing land soil samples (Gr, 0–10 cm) evenly spread over 33 European countries and covering an area of 5.6 million km2. The pH of all samples was determined by one single laboratory applying a 0.01 M...
Article
Hafnium (Hf) and zirconium (Zr) concentrations measured in over 4100 agricultural soil samples from Europe were assessed with the focus on their relationship to the distribution of aeolian deposits, such as loess and coversands. Comparison of extractable (aqua regia; ICP-MS) and total (XRFS) concentrations shows that only 1.0 to 1.7% of the total H...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose Concern about the environmental impact of agriculture caused by intensification is growing as large amounts of nutrients and contaminants are introduced into the environment. The aim of this paper is to identify the geogenic and agricultural controls on the elemental composition of European, grazing and agricultural soils. Materials and me...
Article
The aim of this study was to develop partial least squares (PLS) models to predict the concentrations of 45 elements in soils extracted by the aqua regia (AR) method using diffuse reflectance Fourier Transform mid-infrared (MIR; 4000–500 cm−1) spectroscopy. A total of 4130 soils from the GEMAS European soil sampling program (geochemical mapping of...
Article
Ce, La and Y from agricultural (Ap) and grazing land (Gr) soils of Europe have been investigated using new geochemical data produced by the GEMAS (Geochemical mapping of agricultural and grazing land soils) project. Interpolated maps showing Ce, La, and Y distributions in Ap and Gr were generated using ArcView and classified with the concentration...
Conference Paper
The GEMAS project involved the sampling and analysis of agricultural and grazing land soil over Europe at a sample density of 1 sample per 2500 Km2. Among the complete database we selected the samples collected in the alpine mountain range partially exceeding the border of the Alpine convention and considering important geographic boundaries as the...
Article
Agricultural (Ap, A p-horizon, 0–20 cm) and grazing land soil samples (Gr, 0–10 cm) were collected from a large part of Europe (33 countries, 5.6 million km 2) at an average density of 1 sample site/2500 km 2. The resulting more than 2 Â 2000 soil samples were air dried, sieved to <2 mm and analysed for their Hg concentrations following an aqua reg...