Major and trace elements in soils in the Central Pyrenees: high altitude soils as a cumulative record of background atmospheric contamination over SW Europe

Background, aim, and scope  

High mountain soils constitute a long-term cumulative record of atmospherically deposited trace elements from both natural and anthropogenic sources. The main aims of this study were to determine the level of major and trace metals (Al, Ti, Mn, Fe, and Zr) of lithologic origin and airborne contaminating trace elements (Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, and Pb) in soils in the Central Pyrenees as an indication of background contamination over SW Europe, to establish whether there is a spatial pattern of accumulation of trace elements in soils as a function of altitude, and to examine whether altitude-related physicochemical properties of soils affect the accumulation of major metals and trace elements.