Normalization and calculation of lanthanide element concentrations in environmental samples.

A mathematical model for the prediction of lanthanide element concentrations in soil and plant samples is presented. A comparison between predicted and measured lanthanide values in soil and plant samples show, that the model produces good results for the elements in the soil samples and for most elements in plant material. The accuracy of prediction worsens with decreasing concentration of the heavier lanthanide elements. The mathematical model presented is not valid on other environmental samples like aerosols, because no data for these matrices are available yet to calibrate our normalized curves.