Elements are ubiquitous in the environment.  Some elements are essential nutrients, while others are toxic to humans and biota.  Hence, it is important to study the sources, atmospheric transport and deposition of particulate elements.  We provide an overview of research on characterizing atmospheric particulate elements and approaches to mapping their deposition fluxes in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region (AOSR) in Alberta, Canada.  The first study reviewed size distributions, concentrations and dry deposition fluxes of particulate elements measured worldwide from literature.  Toxic priority elements, including Sb, As, Ni, Se, Ag, Tl and Zn, are predominantly emitted from anthropogenic sources and are dominant in PM_2.5.  Some toxic elements including Cd, Cr, Cu and Pb are present in fine and coarse particles.  Major elements comprising Al, Ca, Fe and Si are naturally abundant in the Earth’s crust and are dominant in coarse particles.  In terms of dry deposition velocities, crustal elements are scavenge more rapidly than anthropogenic elements.  The second study is a development of an emissions database for particulate elements in the AOSR for subsequent air dispersion modeling.  This is necessary to supplement the limited number of monitoring sites in the heavily industrialized AOSR.  Using PM_2.5 and PM_2.5-10 emissions from the 2014 Joint Oil Sands Monitoring inventory and USEPA SPECIATE database, we determined that crustal elements make up the largest emissions of particulate elements in the AOSR and originate from mine construction and fugitive dust from unpaved roads.  The third study is an ongoing analysis of monitored elemental concentrations in PM_2.5 and PM_2.5-10 at four AOSR sites.  Data from the above studies will inform and serve as inputs in air dispersion and dry deposition modeling.  The emissions database will be used in the CALPUFF dispersion model to produce gridded concentrations for 29 elements.  Modeled concentrations will be compared with monitored concentrations to evaluate the accuracy of the emissions database and identify unmonitored areas where modeled concentrations are elevated.  The inferential method will first be applied to estimate dry deposition fluxes at grid points using the knowledge of particulate element size distributions, and future work will incorporate wet deposition modeling.  This will enable us to generate atmospheric deposition maps of elements across the AOSR and assess the impacts of oil sands production to surrounding ecosystems.