Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in two soils, two sediments and an shale from the Pearl River Delta were extracted by sequential accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) with each of four different organic solvents for three times. PAHs in the first extract accounts for more than half of their total contents, and toluene displays the best extraction performance among the four employed solvents. For a given sample the source diagnostic ratios of PAHs in sequential ASE with each solvent are very similar, suggesting the validity of those ratios in source judgement by different extraction methods.