Natural Phosphorus Sources for the Pacific Northwest

Phosphorus is a naturally occurring element found in all rocks; the amount varies by the type of rock. The amount of phosphorus in sediments is expected to be correlated with the amount of phosphorus in the parent rocks. Streambed sediment collected by the National Uranium Resource Evaluation (NURE) Program were used to estimate the variation of phosphorus across the Pacific Northwest. This file provides an estimate of the mean concentration of phosphorus in soils for each incremental catchment of the USGS Pacific Northwest SPARROW model.