Why geochemical mapping?
Australia’s regolith—the blanket of soils, sediments and weathered rocks covering fresh bedrock—is the natural resource upon which our multimillion dollar agricultural industry is based. It also hosts much of our precious groundwater resources and contains or covers ore bodies vital for our economic development. Baseline geochemical surveys provide invaluable information about the natural concentrations of chemical elements in this substrate on which we live, grow crops and raise livestock, and from which we extract water, raw materials and mineral wealth. Overseas data collated from multimedia and multi-element geochemical surveys carried out over large areas indicates that natural concentrations of chemical elements in water, sediment, soil and plants vary spatially by up to several orders of magnitude due to geological, climatic, biological and other factors (Reimann & Caritat 1998). It is important to know the natural concentrations and distributions of elements in the near-surface
