Describing geochemical backgrounds of lithium in rock-soil-sediment systems

An empirical equation has been proposed to describe geochemical backgrounds of trace elements during rock weathering on weathering and lithological indices. However, with respect to lithium, the equation was derived on only 9 regolith profiles in China and was not applicable to carbonate-bearing materials with WIG (weathering index of granite) larger than 120. To derive a robust and widely used equation on geochemical backgrounds of lithium, 851 elemental abundance data including 379, 280, and 192 records of rocks, soils, and stream sediments, respectively, were used to fit the new equation. lgc = −0.02630xy2z + 0.03000xyz2 + 0.03540xy + 0.6425y + 3.288 for WIG