In this chapter, we have tried to review the recent literature on trace elements in rivers, in particular by incorporating the results derived from recent ICP-MS measurements. We have favored a “field approach” by focusing on studies of natural hydrosystems. The basic questions which we want to address are the following: What are the trace element levels in river waters? What controls their abundance in rivers and fractionation in the weathering + transport system? Are trace elements, like major elements in rivers, essentially controlled by source-rock abundances? What do we know about the chemical speciation of trace elements in water? To what extent do colloids and interaction with solids regulate processes of trace elements in river waters? Can we relate the geochemistry of trace elements in aquatic systems to the periodic table? And finally, are we able to satisfactorily model and predict the behavior of most of the trace elements in hydrosystems?

Trace Elements in River Waters

The global control of silicate weathering rates and the coupling with physical erosion: new insights from rivers of the Canadian Shield

The Hf–Nd isotopic composition of marine sediments

https://www.geol.umd.edu/%7Emcdonoug/documents/geochemistry/Geochemistry,%20Solid%20Earth,%20Lithosphere/Teng_etal_(CG_08).pdf

Lithium isotopic composition and concentration of the upper continental crust

Weathering of uplifted continental rocks consumes carbon dioxide and transports cations to the oceans, thereby playing a critical role in controlling both seawater chemistry and climate. However, there are few archives of seawater chemical change that reveal shifts in global tectonic forces connecting Earth ocean-climate processes. We present a 68-million-year record of lithium isotopes in seawater (δ7LiSW) reconstructed from planktonic foraminifera. From the Paleocene (60 million years ago) to the present, δ7LiSW rose by 9 per mil (‰), requiring large changes in continental weathering and seafloor reverse weathering that are consistent with increased tectonic uplift, more rapid continental denudation, increasingly incongruent continental weathering (lower chemical weathering intensity), and more rapid CO2 drawdown. A 5‰ drop in δ7LiSW across the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary cannot be produced by an impactor or by Deccan trap volcanism, suggesting large-scale continental denudation.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/335/6070/818.full.pdf

Lithium Isotope History of Cenozoic Seawater: Changes in Silicate Weathering and Reverse Weathering

Quantifying Li isotope fractionation during smectite formation and implications for the Li cycle

https://hal-brgm.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00553199/document

Behaviour of lithium and its isotopes during weathering in the Mackenzie Basin, Canada

We report here a newly developed method for measurement of Li isotopes by use of multi-collector ICP-MS (Neptune) allowing rapid and high precision determination of Li isotope ratios at low levels of lithium (15–20 ng). The lithium reference sample solution IRMM-016 was analysed over a period of ten months with an external reproducibility of 0.24% (2s, n = 52). Chemical separation of Li from matrix was performed on the seawater sample IRMM BCR-403, for which a mean δ7Li value of + 31.0 ± 0.1 % (2s/√n, n = 31) was obtained. This mean value is in good agreement with those previously published for other seawater samples. BCR-403 seawater being readily available, we propose that this seawater sample be used as a reference sample for Li isotope measurements.

Accurate and High-Precision Measurement of Lithium Isotopes in Two Reference Materials by MC-ICP-MS

Erosion timescales derived from U-decay series measurements in rivers

http://s1.e-monsite.com/2009/07/07/86402202008brenotetalgcamg-pdf.pdf

Nathalie Vigier

Papers

Quantifying Li isotope fractionation during smectite formation and implications for the Li cycle

Behaviour of lithium and its isotopes during weathering in the Mackenzie Basin, Canada

Accurate and High-Precision Measurement of Lithium Isotopes in Two Reference Materials by MC-ICP-MS

Erosion timescales derived from U-decay series measurements in rivers

Magnesium isotope systematics of the lithologically varied Moselle river basin, France