ELEMENTAL COMPOSITION OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF WOOD

For the use of wood as an environmental sensor the average or normal e lemental composition of wood has to be known (here with Z>12). Since w e find with PIXE that the elemental composition depends on the species , environmental influences can only be deduced indirectly from deviati ons from average elemental concentrations, which have to be known for each examined species. The average elemental composition was calculate d from the concentrations of more than 10 samples from almost as many sites for beech and oak. Other species were also analysed but not from more than three different sites. Significant correlations between cer tain elemental concentrations were found (in particular between Ca and Mn), also studied was the influence of the growing site on the elemen tal concentrations.