All rights reserved. No part of this periodical may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Permission for printing and for reprinting the material contained herein has been obtained by the publisher. Modeling Selenite Adsorption Envelopes on Oxides, Clay Minerals, and Soils using the Triple Layer Model Soil Chemistry S elenium is an essential micronutrient element for animals. The concentration range between deficiency and toxicity is very narrow. Elevated concentrations of Se in soils and waters can occur as a result of discharge from petroleum refineries and mining operations, disposal of fly ash and coal ash, and mineral oxidation and dissolution (Girling, 1984). Vegetation grown on seleniferous soils can become toxic to grazing animals (Lakin, 1961). Deaths and deformities of migratory waterfowl have been attributed to elevated concentrations of Se in agricultural drainage waters (Ohlendorf et al., 1986). In soil solution, the dominant inorganic Se species are: selenate, Se(VI), under oxidizing conditions and selenite, Se(IV), under more reducing conditions (Adriano, 1986). Selenate is considered to be the less toxic oxidation state (Fernandez et al., 1993). Redox transformation rates for inorganic Se species are slow so that both selenate and selenite often coexist in soil solution (Masscheleyn et al., 1990). Selenium adsorption has been investigated on a wide range of surfaces including: aluminum and iron oxides, clay minerals, and whole soils. Soil constituents that are significantly positively correlated with soil Se content include: extractable Al and Fe oxides and clay minerals (Lévesque, 1974). Selenate has been observed to adsorb to a much lesser extent than selenite on goethite (Balistrieri and Chao, 1987), hematite (Duc et al., 2003), and soils (Neal and Sposito, 1989). Sorption of both Se redox states on Fe oxides was greatest at pH 3 and decreased with increasing solution pH (Balistrieri and Chao, 1987; Parida et al., 1997; Duc et al., 2003). Selenite adsorption on a disordered Al hydroxide decreased as pH was