Since 1980 the main goal of geochemical investigations in Lithuania has been the estimation of technogene changes of microelements in the earth's surface sediments. For this purpose the geochemical mapping at various scales has been employed: at regional scale (1:2,500,000-1:500,000), at large scale (1:50,000-1:25,000), and at local scales 1:10,000-1:1000. The most important tasks are to determine and to establish the geochemical background for technogene changes in the topsoil layer and in the water reservoir bottom sediments. When mapping the zones of increased technogenical load the increase of concentration for most microelements in soils (ground) and in water reservoirs were established. Zn, Pb, Cu, Sn, Ag, Cr and Ni are the main elements-pollutants of these zones, concentrations of which exceed the background values from a few up to a dozen times. In certain cases their concentrations and the concentrations of specific elements, such as Sb, Bi, Ce. La, exceed thousands times the background value. At such zones the danger of pollution is increased due to the occurrence of mobile and potentially mobile toxic elements. During the soil mapping within the towns and factories not only the concentration of elements and the associations of elements-pollutants have been ascertained, but also the approximate contamination dangerous for biota - the total index of contamination (Z(s)) - has been calculated. The additional index that shows dangerous pollution is the maximum permissible by general sanitary concentration of chemical elements in soil (MPLCs) used in Lithuania. At some extremely contaminated zones (Z(s) > 128) the migration forms of toxic elements were determined by AAS-ES (gradual extraction using reagents of various acidity). The geochemical mapping data are used for the land-use, for the selection of geochemical monitoring polygons, hydrochemical, ecomedical and other investigations. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.
