Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Soil Science
Rising Temperatures Increase Risk of Soil Salinity and Land Degradation in Water-Scarce Regions
Published: 2024-10-17
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Soil Science, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Climate change introduces significant uncertainty when assessing the risk of soil salinity in water-scarce regions. We combine a soil-water-salinity-sodicity model (SOTE) and a weather generator model (AWE-GEN) to develop a framework for studying salinity and sodicity dynamics under changing climate definitions. Using California’s San Joaquin Valley as a case study, we perform first-order [...]
Contrasting Land‑Uses Affect Chemical Composition of Organic Matter in Tropical Soils: A Case Study via Os Staining and FTIR
Published: 2024-10-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Soil Science
Particulate organic matter (POM) is a significant component of soil organic carbon (SOC), particularly in tropical soils, where it often serves as a primary precursor for the formation of mineral-associated organic matter (MAOM). This study investigates the impact of contrasting land-use practices on composition of POM in tropical soils. Using dual-energy X-ray microtomography approach with [...]
Landscape evolution of the Black Forest: From the Variscan orogeny to the modern era
Published: 2024-09-28
Subjects: Geomorphology, Glaciology, Soil Science
With a maximum elevation of 1493 m above sea-level, the Black Forest (Schwarzwald in German) is the second highest mountain range in Germany. It is subdivided in three main natural regions, the northern, central, and southern Black Forest. The Variscan basement of the Black Forest consists of plutonic and metamorphic rocks. Sedimentary rocks formed during the Mesozoic under marine and terrestrial [...]
Prioritizing Safety, Advancing Efficiency: Developing a New Total Phosphorous Microwave Digestion Method for Sediment Core Nutrient Analysis
Published: 2024-09-26
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Environmental Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Soil Science
Long-term datasets are invaluable resources for understanding broad-level temporal patterns in ecosystems. For over two decades, UC Davis and Lake County Water Resources Department have collaborated on a long-term monitoring project of Clear Lake sediment nutrient concentrations, in an effort to better understand nutrient cycling in Clear Lake. When the need for a new total phosphorus digestion [...]
How much is enough? Uncertainty aware sample mass determination of coarse-grained soils for particle size analyses
Published: 2024-08-23
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Geology, Geomorphology, Geotechnical Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Earth Sciences, Probability, Sedimentology, Soil Science, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability, Stratigraphy
Determining particle size distributions (PSD) of soils is a basic first step in many geotechnical analyses and guidance is given in different national standards. For ambiguous reasons, the recommended required minimum sample mass (m_min) for the PSD-analyses of soils with a main component of gravel or greater is always based on equations including the soil's maximum grain diameter (D_max). We [...]
Sensitivities of soil respiration and heterotrophic respiration to temperature in a cool-temperate forest with sika deer-induced understory vegetation alteration
Published: 2024-08-05
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Monitoring, Forest Biology, Forest Management, Soil Science, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Overpopulated ungulates reduce the biomass of understory vegetation and promote the expansion of unpalatable plants in world forests. These understory degradations possibly influence sensitivities of soil respiration (Rs) and heterotrophic respiration (Rh) to temperature and moisture. Here, we examined this possibility in a cool-temperate forest in southern Kyushu, Japan. At the study site, the [...]
Modeling sediment compaction beneath ice lenses during frost heave
Published: 2024-07-13
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Soil Science
Frost heave occurs when the ground swells during freezing conditions due to the growth of ice lenses in the subsurface. The mechanics of ice-infiltrated sediment, or frozen fringe, influences the formation and evolution of ice lenses. As the frozen fringe thickens during freezing, progressive unloading can result in dilation of the pore space and the formation of new ice lenses. Compaction can [...]
Uranium-series isotopes as tracers of physical and chemical weathering in glacial sediments from Taylor Valley, Antarctica
Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Glaciology, Soil Science
The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica formed by extensive glacial erosion, yet currently exhibit hyperarid polar conditions characterized by limited chemical and physical weathering. Efficient chemical weathering occurs when moisture is available, and polythermal subglacial conditions may accommodate ongoing mechanical weathering and valley incision. Taylor Valley hosts several Pleistocene [...]
Micro-Scale Mapping of Soil Organic Carbon: The Potential of Soft X-Ray Spectromicroscopy
Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Agriculture, Environmental Sciences, Soil Science
Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays a crucial role in soil fertility, productivity, and global carbon cycling. However, the mechanisms governing SOC persistence and turnover are not fully understood, hindering effective carbon management strategies. Especially limiting are challenges to visualize and characterize spatial distribution patterns of SOC within the intact soil. This study presents a novel [...]
The potential of terrestrial and aquatic molluscs for the temporal analysis of Deckenschotter deposits and younger Quaternary sediments from the Swiss Plateau
Published: 2024-05-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Soil Science, Stratigraphy, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Scaling High-resolution Soil Organic Matter Composition to Improve Predictions of Potential Soil Respiration Across the Continental United States
Published: 2024-02-13
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Soil Science
Despite the importance of microbial respiration of soil organic matter (SOM) in regulating carbon flux between soils and atmosphere, soil carbon cycling models remain primarily based on climate and soil properties, leading to large uncertainty in predictions. With data from the 1000 Soils Pilot of the Molecular Observation Network (MONet), we analyzed high resolution water-extractable SOM [...]
Aggregates versus pores? A survey among soil scientists about their perspectives on soil structure
Published: 2024-02-08
Subjects: Soil Science
Despite mostly uniform definitions of soil structure, two perspectives on it have been juxtaposed in the past: the “aggregate perspective” and the “pore perspective”. The debate as represented in the literature appears to be polarised. To test whether this is also the case in the wider soil science community, an online survey was conducted asking about soil [...]
Microbial indicators and detection of Cu-sulfide ore mineralization
Published: 2024-01-02
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Soil Science
Rapid electrification of society is placing unprecedented demand on critical mineral and metal resources. New strategies and technologies are thus needed to promote mineral discovery in regions where deposits are likely buried deep under soil and glacial till. We show that microbial communities from different soil types change in composition in response to amendment with copper. We also show [...]
High Accuracy Estimation and Validation of InSAR-derived Surface Displacements at Temperate Raised Peatlands
Published: 2023-09-04
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology, Hydrology, Soil Science
Peatland surface motion derived from satellite-based Interferometry of Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) is potentially a proxy for groundwater level variations and greenhouse gas emissions from peat soils. Ground validation of these motions at equivalent temporal resolution and accuracy has proven problematic because of limitations of traditional surveying methods. Since 2019, peat surface motion [...]
Beyond microbial carbon use efficiency
Published: 2023-08-16
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Soil Science
Microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) is defined as the proportion of microbial biomass growth C versus substrate C uptake, and thus provides a useful measure of microbially driven accumulation and loss of soil organic carbon (SOC) 1. In a recent study published in Nature 2, the authors use a data-driven machine learning approach to conclude that CUE promotes global SOC storage based on a [...]