A study of the chemical budget of Lake Baikal using neutron activation and synchrotron radiation

Beginning in 1993, neutron activation analysis (NAA) and synchrotron radiation X-ray fluorescence analysis (SRXFA) have been used to investigate the composition of particles suspended in Lake Baikal and its major tributaries. Both techniques have provided data on the concentration of a wide range of elements with neutron activation offering the first data on several rare earth elements and other minor elements. While each technique appears to be more suitable for determining the concentration of certain elements than an alternate technique, both techniques are in close agreement in their analysis of most of the elements studied. International standard reference materials were used to calibrate and validate the analyses and allow results from the two methods to be compared. The results of this study have been combined with published data to calculate the total elemental input into the lake.