Characteristics of Natural and Urban Soils - Dealing with Contaminated Sites: From Theory Towards Practical Application - page 92

2.4 Contamination Potential ....................................

115

2.4.1 Soils of Deposited Material and Former Industrial Sites ............. 115

2.4.2 Additional Sources of Contamination ........................ 118

2.5 Chemical Characteristics with Reference to Contaminated Sites ............ 121

2.6 Physical Characteristics with Reference to Contaminated Sites .............

124

2.7 Case Studies ...........................................

126

2.7.1 The Soil as a Chromatogram - Barium ....................... 126

2.7.2 Arsenic in Weathered Rock at the New Victorian Museum, Melbourne .... 129

2.7.3 Chromium in Soils .................................... 130

2.7.4 Vanadium in Soils ....................................

132

References ................................................ 133

2.1 Soils of Contaminated Sites

This chapter deals with soils that have been contaminated by human activities and
soils that have inherent contamination due to natural causes, as well as soils that may
be thought of as contaminated, but where the contaminants are part of the natural
geochemistry comprehensive data about contaminated urban soils can be found in
Meuser 2010.

2.1.1 Natural and Anthropogenic Soils

Soil contamination can relate to all kind of soil materials and the subsequent distri-
bution of contaminants within the soil profile is often controlled by the build-up and
composition of soil layers and horizons. In general, we have to differentiate between
three groups of soils that may have become contaminated:

1. Soils derived from natural parent material, indicating natural pedogenesis, such
as Cambisols, Gleysols, Lixisols, Planosols, Solonchaks, Ferralsols and many
other Major Soil Groupings (FAO 2006 ; FAO-Unesco 1998 ). The differentia-
tion between all these Major Soil Groups is based on transformations caused by
their weathering histories and differences between their original parent materi-
als. Also, the movement and accumulation of contaminants in these natural soil
profiles is affected by the horizonation of the profile and the varying permeability
of individual soil horizons.
2. Natural soils under mainly long-term horticultural cultivation (Anthrosols; FAO
2006 ), which commonly are further specified in, for instance, the German
nomenclature as Hortisols and Treposols (Meuser and Blume 2004 ). These soils
are the most likely soils to have been treated with high amounts of nutrients,
especially P and N, from farmyard manures and fertilisers, as well as metals