RiverElementsR Documentation

Elements in River Water Samples

Description

Concentrations of elements in river water samples from upstate NY

Format

A dataset with 12 observations on the following 27 variables.

River One of four rivers: Grasse, Oswegatchie, Raquette, or St. Regis
Site Location: 1=UpStream, 2=MidStream, 3=Downstream
Al Aluminum
Ba Barium
Br Bromine
Ca Calcium
Ce Cerium
Cu Copper
Dy Dysprosium
Er Erbim
Fe Iron
Gd Gadolinium
Ho Holmum
K Potassium
La Lathanum
Li Lithium
Mg Magnesium
Mn Manganese
Nd Neodymium
Pr Proseyodymium
Rb Rubidium
Si Silicon
Sr Strontium
Y Yttrium
Yb Ytterbium
Zn Zinc
Zr Zirconium

Details

Some geologists were interested in the water chemistry of rivers in upstate New York. They took water samples at three different locations in four rivers (Grasse, Oswegatchie, Raquette, and St. Regis). The sampling sites were chosen to investigate how the composition of the water changes as it flows from the source to the mouth of each river. The sampling sites were labeled as upstream, midstream, and downstream. This dataset contains the concentrations (parts per million) of a variety of elements in those water samples. The dataset RiverIron contains the information for iron (FE) alone, along with the log of the concentration.

Source

Thanks to Dr. Jeff Chiarenzelli of the St. Lawrence University Geology Department for the data.

References

Chiarenzelli, Lock, Cady, Bregani and Whitney, "Variation in river multi-element chemistry related to bedrock buffering: an example from the Adirondack region of northern New York, USA", Environmental Earth Sciences, Volume 67, Number 1 (2012), 189-204