Two CZ sessions at Goldschmidt 2013:

Session 16B: "Probing the Critical Zone"

The critical zone of the Earth is the thin pellicule of the Earth "between the rocks and sky". Critical Zone processes sustain terrestrial ecosystems, shape landscapes and control linkages between land and water. Quantifying these processes requires studies that address complex biotic/abiotic interactions. The last decade has seen an unprecedented development of integrated studies on the Critical Zone of the Earth, in particular based on Critical Zone Observatories and monitoring facilities. This session will welcome studies that aim to define and understand the main processes operating in the Critical Zone and their couplings. In particular, submissions addressing feedbacks between biogeochemical cycling and chemical weathering are strongly encouraged.

Keynote: Jon Chorover (University of Arizona)

Session Convenors: Corey Lawrence, Sétareh Rad, Heather Buss

Tuesday Morning Talks: August 27th, 9:00-11:15 in L01

Monday Posters: August 26th, Posters 337-344

Session 19c:  "Subsurface porous media as biogeochemical reactors: How coupled biogeochemical processes affect material fluxes from molecular to Critical Zone scales"

Development of a mechanistic interpretation of chemical dynamics in natural subsurface porous media is often limited by an incomplete understanding of the coupled biotic and abiotic processes that govern chemical phase partitioning and transport. These heterogeneous systems are characterized by a range of possible molecular-scale reactions, separated in space and time, whose relative importance may be affected by pore, pedon and catchment or watershed scale drivers. At the same time, to the extent that subsurface porous media operate as biogeochemical reactors, reaction chemistry should be reflected in large scale structure (e.g., regolith formation) and phenomena (e.g., catchment hydrologic response). This symposium invites all papers that seek to enlighten the linkages between underlying molecular processes and higher-scale observations of biogeochemistry pertaining to soils, sediments, aquifers and fractured bedrock systems.

Co-conveners:  Ruben Kretzschmar (ETHZ), Jon Chorover (Arizona), and Steve Banwart (Sheffield)

Wednesday Afternoon Talks: August 28th, 14:30-17:30 in L11

Wednesday Posters: August 28th, Posters 358-362

Registration and abstract submission

Now open http://goldschmidt.info/2013/index

Abstract submission
DEADLINE 12 April, 2013 (23:59 UTC)