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Karst systems are useful for examining spatial and temporal variability in Critical Zone processes because they provide a window into the subsurface where waters have interacted with vegetation, soils, regolith, and bedrock across a range of length and time scales. The majority of Critical Zone research has emphasized silicate lithologies, which are typified by relatively slow rates of reactivity and incongruent weathering. However, weathering of carbonate dominated lithology can result in secondary mineral deposits, such as speleothems, which provide a long-term archive for Critical Zone processes. Examination of carbon isotope variability in speleothems has the potential to provide records of changes in vegetation,...
Categories: Data;
Tags: Blue Springs Cave,
Tennessee,
USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC),
White County,
carbon, All tags...
cave,
elemental chemistry,
geoscientificInformation,
isotopes,
karst,
none,
radiocarbon,
soil,
trace elements, Fewer tags
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Soils are a vast reservoir of organic carbon (C), rendering the fate of soil C an important control on the global climate system. Widespread changes in soil C storage capacity present a potentially strong feedback to global change. Yet, a comprehensive understanding of how soil C will respond to climate and/or land use disturbance remains illusive, resulting in major uncertainties in global climate models. Our working group will synthesize information on the processes controlling soil C storage across different spatial scales and develop new procedures to translate local measurements to the regional and global scale datasets used by models. These activities will improve our ability to map the vulnerability of soil...
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Abstract Improved quantification of the factors controlling soil organic matter (SOM) stabilization at continental to global scales is needed to inform projections of the largest actively cycling terrestrial carbon pool on Earth, and its response to environmental change. Biogeochemical models rely almost exclusively on clay content to modify rates of SOM turnover and fluxes of climate-active CO2 to the atmosphere. Emerging conceptual understanding, however, suggests other soil physicochemical properties may predict SOM stabilization better than clay content. We addressed this discrepancy by synthesizing data from over 5,500 soil profiles spanning continental scale environmental gradients. Here, we demonstrate that...
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