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Record W4417136465 · doi:10.2343/geochemj.gj25019

The average elemental composition of Canadian temperate climate vegetation

2025· article· en· W4417136465 on OpenAlexaffabout
John D. Greenough, Jeff Curtis, Mark Button

Bibliographic record

VenueGEOCHEMICAL JOURNAL · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldEarth and Planetary Sciences
TopicGeochemistry and Elemental Analysis
Canadian institutionsUniversity of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus
FundersNational Institute of Standards and Technology
KeywordsLithophileContinental crustTemperate climateVegetation (pathology)Soil waterTemperate forestTrace elementCrust

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

The elemental composition of vegetation is poorly known so we report on the minor and trace element concentrations (~50 elements) in leaves and needles from the dominant species of woody vegetation at locations across Canada. Data are combined with estimates for elements near analytical detection limits, to yield an average composition for temperate climate vegetation, mostly grown on post-Pleistocene glacial soils approximating average continental crust (total 71 elements). Lithophile K, Mg, Ca, Sr, chalcophile Hg, Cu, Zn, Mo and Cd and siderophile Ag, Pd, Ir, and Os with low ionic charges and intermediate effective ionic radii show average vegetation/average continental crust ratios (hereafter vegetation/crust) above 0.1. Environmentally-sensitive, 2+, Cd and Hg are highly water-soluble and enriched in vegetation (2.4 and 1.0 * continental crust, respectively). Other high vegetation/crust ratios (1.0 to ~10) are shown by life-essential, 3+ B, 5+ P and 6+ S which have small ionic radii and thus, high effective ionic potentials. Elements with low ratios (~0.001) include the lithophile 3+ rare earth elements (REE, La to Yb), Al, Sc and Ga, 4+ Ti, U, and Th and 5+ V. However, 4+ Zr and Hf and 5+ Nb and Ta form a low concentration trough (~0.0001 * continental crust) in charge-radius space. These concentration patterns reflect charge and radius control on the solubility of elements in soil water. Assuming the immature soils approach average continental crust, the vegetation/crust ratios reflect the partitioning of elements between soil minerals and water taken up by plants. Organizing the elements from highest (S = 13) to lowest (Hf = 0.00004) ratios, allows normalizing other vegetation-based materials with average vegetation to decipher processes impacting the materials. Two published agrifood data sets for Canadian wines and maple syrups illustrate utility of the average vegetation data set for inferring processes.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.000
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.000
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Observational · Consensus signal: Observational
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.015
Threshold uncertainty score0.100

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0000.000
Bibliometrics0.0030.004
Science and technology studies0.0030.000
Scholarly communication0.0010.000
Open science0.0010.000
Research integrity0.0000.000
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0030.000

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.005
GPT teacher head0.195
Teacher spread0.191 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designObservational
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations0
Published2025
Admission routes2
Has abstractyes

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