Some aspects of the chemistry of lithium in soils

A method for the determination of exchangeable lithium using 0.5M NH4Cl is described. The range of exchangeable Li in the fifty Papua New Guinea (PNG) soils analyzed was 0.002 to 0.409 μgg−1 in contrast to five Australian soils which ranged from 0.032 to 0.830 μgg−1. The PNG soils were divided into hill and alluvial soils with average exchangeable Li contents of 0.062 and 0.263 μgg−1 respectively. No significant correlation between total and exchangeable Li was found in either group of soils althoughr=0.67 for the comined data and was significant at the 5% level. From the analysis of three profiles exchangeable Li was found to be at least twice as high (0.27 μgg−1) in surface soils as in subsurface samples (0.10 μgg−1). The average value of the deeper subsoil samples was 0.18 ppm.