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The USGS has asked the National Research Council (NRC) to convene a workshop during Spring 2006 to focus on the design of a soil geochemical survey of North America. This subject generated the most discussion and debate at the 2003 Soil Geochemistry Workshop and these continue to this day. The workshop will consider a design based on sampling according to a uniform grid and also various options for a stratified design. Once final recommendations on sample design are available from NRC, the final sampling and analytical protocols will be written and published for the continental-scale soil geochemical survey. We hope these will be available by October 2006. Initiation of sampling for the survey will be dependent on budget for the collaborating agencies, but would start no earlier than 2007.

Marty Goldhaber and Dave Smith (co-chiefs of the Geochemical Landscapes Project) and W.A. (Bud) Norvell of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Plant, Soil, and Nutrition Laboratory in Ithaca, NY are convening a symposium titled "Soil Geochemical Patterns at Regional, National, and International Scales" at the 18th World Congress of Soil Science (WCSS) (http://www.colostate.edu/programs/IUSS/18wcss/). The WCSS is being held July 9-15, 2006 in Philadelphia, PA. The oral portion of the symposium consists of three 35-minutes presentations, the titles of which are as follows:

The Baltic Soil Survey (BSS): Sub-continental scale geochemical mapping of agricultural soils from northern Europe [PDF file, 20 KB]; presented by Clemens Reimann, Geological Survey of Norway
Spatial Patterns in Soil Geochemistry of the United States: The Relationship between Scale and Process [PDF file, 16 KB]; presented by David B. Smith U.S. Geological Survey.
Regional-Scale Soil Geochemistry of Northern California: Natural and Anthropogenic Sources of Soil Constituents [PDF file, 16 KB]; presented by Martin B. Goldhaber, U.S. Geological Survey.

There will also be a poster session associated with the symposium.

Mineral Resources	Eastern / Central / Western / Alaska / Minerals Information
	Crustal Imaging & Characterization / Spatial Data