THE FORUM-OF-EUROPEAN-GEOLOGICAL-SURVEYS GEOCHEMISTRY TASK GROUP INVENTORY 1994-1996

The Forum of European Geological Surveys (FOREGS) includes representat ives from 33 European countries and is responsible for co-ordinating G eological Survey activities in Europe. The FOREGS Geochemistry Task Gr oup was established in 1994 to develop a strategy for the preparation of European geochemical maps following the recommendations of the Inte rnational Geological Correlation Programme (IGCP) Project 259 'Interna tional Geochemical Mapping' (now the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS)/International Association of Geochemistry and Cosmoch emistry (IAGC) Working Group on Global Geochemical Baselines). The FOR EGS geochemistry programme is aimed at preparing a standardised Europe an geochemical baseline to IGCP-259 standards. The principal aims of t his dataset will be for environmental purposes, as a baseline for the assessment of the extent and distribution of contaminated land in the context of variations in the natural geochemical background, but it wi ll also have applications in resource assessment and for the developme nt of policy for the sustainable management of metalliferous mineral a nd other resources. The first phase of the programme was the compilati on of an inventory of geochemical data based on the results of a quest ionnaire completed by Geological Surveys and related organisations thr oughout the FOREGS community. The results show that the sample types w hich have been used most extensively are stream sediment (26% coverage ), surface water (19% coverage) and soil (11% coverage). Stream sedime nts have been collected using a narrow range of mesh sizes (<150-<200 mu m), but soil samples have been collected according to two different conventions: some surveys used a similar mesh size range to that used for stream sediments while others employed the <1000 or <2000 mu m fr actions traditionally used by soil surveys. Sample densities range fro m 1 sample per 0.5 km(2) to 1 per 3500 km(2), Various analytical metho ds have been used, but most of the available data have been calibrated using international reference materials, and data for :he most import ant of the potentially harmful elements (PHEs) are available for most datasets. Systematic radiometric data are available for only a small p roportion of Europe, a situation which compares very unfavourably with that in Australia, North America, the former Soviet Union and many de veloping countries. Recommendations are made for increasing the compat ibility of geochemical methods between national geochemical surveys as a basis for the preparation of a series of European geochemical maps. The next stage of the FOREGS Geochemistry Task Group will be the coll ection of the Global Reference Network of samples against which to sta ndardise national datasets according to the methods recommended in the final report of the IGCP 259 programme. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V .