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A multidisciplinary team of scientists established Christiana River Basin Critical Zone Observatory (CRB-CZO) to integrate three major processes governing the critical zone: the water cycle, the mineral cycle, and the carbon cycle. Our holistic study of the entire 1440 km2 Christina River Basin watershed temporally integrates vertical and lateral carbon, mineral and water fluxes over a range of modern and historical land uses.
Explore our goals, hypotheses and objectives »
Research highlights
- Intensive study sites for the impacts of mature forest, row crop agriculture, and continuous excavation (landfill) on hydrological, pedological and geomorphological processes.
- Long-term continuous datasets as a basis for hydrological and material transport models, including implementation of the Penn State Integrated Hydrological Model (PIHM).
- Intensive geochemical characterization of mineral weathering, carbon-mineral complex formation and carbon stabilization in soils and sediments of different origin and landuse.
- Source-to-sink sediment tracing study using radio-isotopes and other geochemical "fingerprints".
CRB-CZO Research Overview
Research News
FEATURED
CZ colleagues: Please contact us about proposals for NSF’s CZ Collaborative Network, due 02 Dec 2019
08 Jul 2019 - CZO will end Nov 2020, succeeded by the “CZ Collaborative Network”. Let’s explore how the CZ community can build upon the CZOs via new NSF proposals.
FEATURED
NSF Discovery articles focus on the CZOs.
10 May 2018 - The Discoveries section of the National Science Foundation's website on Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs).
FEATURED
New study suggests bedrock weathering based on topography
30 Oct 2015 - St. Clair et al. suggest tectonic stresses interact with topography to influence bedrock weathering.
White paper of 2017 CZ Science Meeting in Arlington, VA
01 Jan 2018 - New Opportunities for Critical Zone Science Following the June 2017 Arlington Meeting for Critical Zone Science (hosted by CZO), a white booklet...
CZOs at AGU 2017
05 Dec 2017 - Information on CZO award recipients, events, presentations, etc. at the 2017 AGU Fall Meeting.
Water Resources Research Special Collection: Concentration-discharge relations in the critical zone
30 Oct 2017 - Water Resources Research published a new special collection in September 2017 featuring concentration-discharge research from multiple CZOs.
The frontier beneath our feet — an AGU commentary on the critical zone
21 Apr 2017 - AGU has published a collection of commentaries highlighting the important role Earth and space science research plays in society.
2017 CZO Webinar Series: Critical Zone and Society
06 Apr 2017 - 2017 CZO Webinar Series: Critical Zone and Society.
Example Publications
FEATURED
Ecological and genomic attributes of novel bacterial taxa that thrive in subsurface soil horizons. Brewer, Tess E., Emma L. Aronson, Keshav Arogyaswamy, Sharon A. Billings, Jon K. Botthoff, Ashley N. Campbell, Nicholas C. Dove, Dawson Fairbanks, Rachel E. Gallery, Stephen C. Hart, Jason Kaye, Gary King, Geoffrey Logan, Kathleen A. Lohse, Mia R. Maltz, Emilio Mayorga, Caitlin O’Neill, Sarah M. Owens, Aaron Packman, Jennifer Pett-Ridge, Alain F. Plante, Daniel D. Richter, Whendee L. Silver, Wendy H. Yang, Noah Fierer (2019): mBio Oct 2019, 10 (5) e01318-19 Cross-CZO National
FEATURED
Geophysical imaging reveals topographic stress control of bedrock weathering. St. Clair, J., S. Moon, W. S. Holbrook, J. T. Perron, C. S. Riebe, S. J. Martel, B. Carr, C. Harman, K. Singha, D. deB. Richter (2015): Science 350 (6260): 534-538 Cross-CZO National
FEATURED
Hydrologic dynamics and geochemical responses within a floodplain aquifer and hyporheic zone during Hurricane Sandy. Sawyer, A.H., L.A. Kaplan, O. Lazareva, and H.A. Michael (2014): Water Resources Research, 50 (6): 4877–4892
FEATURED
Riverine coupling of biogeochemical cycles between land, oceans, and atmosphere. Aufdenkampe, A. K., Mayorga, E., Raymond, P. A., Melack, J. M., Doney, S. C., Alin, S. R., Aalto, R. E., and Yoo, K. (2011): Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 9:53-60.
Beyond clay: towards an improved set of variables for predicting soil organic matter content. Rasmussen C., Heckman K., Wieder W.R., Keiluweit M., Lawrence C.R., Berhe A.A., Blankinship J.C., Crow S.E., Druhan J.L., Hicks Pries C.E., Marin-Spiotta E., Plante A.F., Schädel C., Schimel J.P., Sierra C.A., Thompson A., Wagai R. (2018): Biogeochemistry 137(3): 297–306 Cross-CZO
Reviews and syntheses: on the roles trees play in building and plumbing the critical zone. Brantley, Susan L., David M. Eissenstat, Jill A. Marshall, Sarah E. Godsey, Zsuzsanna Balogh-Brunstad, Diana L. Karwan, Shirley A. Papuga, Joshua Roering, Todd E. Dawson, Jaivime Evaristo, Oliver Chadwick, Jeffrey J. McDonnell, Kathleen C. Weathers (2017): Biogeosciences, 14, 5115-5142 Cross-CZO National
Variation of organic matter quantity and quality in streams at Critical Zone Observatory watersheds. Miller, Matthew P., Boyer, Elizabeth W., McKnight, Diane M., Brown, Michael G., Gabor, Rachel S., Hunsaker, Carolyn T., Iavorivska, Lidiia, Inamdar, Shreeram, Johnson, Dale W., Kaplan, Louis A., Lin, Henry, McDowell, William H., Perdrial, Julia N. (2016): Water Resources Research, 52 (10): 8202–8216 Cross-CZO
Chapter 2 – The Role of Critical Zone Observatories in Critical Zone Science. White T., Brantley S., Banwart S., Chorover J., Dietrich W., Derry L., Lohse K., Anderson S., Aufdendkampe A., Bales R., Kumar P., Richter D., McDowell B. (2015): Developments in Earth Surface Processes 19: 15–78 Cross-CZO National
Laser vision: lidar as a transformative tool to advance critical zone science. Harpold, A. A., Marshall, J. A., Lyon, S. W., Barnhart, T. B., Fisher, B. A., Donovan, M., Brubaker, K. M., Crosby, C. J., Glenn, N. F., Glennie, C. L., Kirchner, P. B., Lam, N., Mankoff, K. D., McCreight, J. L., Molotch, N. P., Musselman, K. N., Pelletier, J., Russo, T., Sangireddy, H., Sjöberg, Y., Swetnam, T., and West, N. (2015): Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 2881-2897 Cross-CZO National
Run-of-river impoundments pass bed material and establish equilibrium bed morphology while remaining largely unfilled with sediment in Northern Delaware. Pearson, A.J., and Pizzuto, J.E. (2015): Geomorphology
Soil moisture response to snowmelt timing in mixed-conifer subalpine forests. Harpold A. A., Molotch N. P., Musselman K. N., Bales R. C., Kirchner P. B., Litvak M. and Brooks P. D. (2015): Hydrological Processes 29(12): 2782–2798 Cross-CZO
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