Research Foci
Our overarching goal is to:
- Integrate feedbacks between the three major processes governing the critical zone -- the water cycle, the mineral cycle, and the carbon cycle ...
- within contrasting land uses...
- as materials are transported and transformed across geophysical boundaries that traditionally separate scientific disciplines (i.e. sapprolite → topsoils → aquifers → riparian floodplains → wetlands → river networks → salt marshes → estuaries → sea).
Our overall hypotheses are that:
- Hydrological, chemical, & biological processes that produce and mix mineral surfaces and organic carbon are rate limiting to watershed-scale chemical weathering, soil production & carbon sequestration.
- Humans accelerate rates of carbon-mineral mixing, resulting in anthropogenic carbon sequestration significant to local, regional & global budgets
Our multi-disciplinary objectives
are described below.
Conceptual model illustrating our hypothesis that processes that mix minerals and carbon are rate limiting to watershed-scale chemical weathering, soil production & carbon sequestration. Credit: Aufdenkampe & Yoo.
1. Carbon-mineral-microbe-water interactions and feedbacks to reaction rates
Contact: Anthony Aufdenkampe
Q1.1. What determines OC complexation potential?
Q1.2. What is the role of microorganisms in the formation, aging, and maintenance of Fe oxide-OC complexes?
2. Co-evolution of Critical Zone Structure, Hydro-Bio-Geo-Chemical Function and Carbon Complexation
Contact: Kyungsoo Yoo, Paul Imhoff
Q2.1: How do physical and hydro-chemical weathering produce mineral SA and pore structure within the critical zone and how are these processes altered by biological C cycling and landscape redistribution of water and solutes?
Q2.2: How do increases in mineral SA and pore space from mineral weathering alter water retention, water and gas transport, and carbon-mineral interactions? Do these changes provide a positive feedback that increases rates of mineral weathering?
Q2.3: How do agricultural practices that physically disturb colluvial soil alter the C-cycle, moisture retention, and mineral weathering?
3. Mobilization, Transport, and Depositional Controls on Carbon-Mineral Supply, Mixing, and Burial.
Contact: Jim Pizzuto, Rolf Aalto
Q3.1: What are the dominant water and DOC source areas, flowpaths, and residence times (transit times) across CZO watersheds and stream networks?
Q3.2. How does surface/subsurface water exchange influence the movement of DOC at different scales and in different environments?
Q3.3. What are the transport pathways and residence times of mineral-carbon complexes as they move through the Piedmont uplands, the tidally influenced Coastal Plain, and the estuary?
4. Saprolite to Sea Integration of Erosion-Driven Caron Sequestration
Contact: Anthony Aufdenkampe, J. Denis Newbold
Q4.1 How are erosion-deposition processes linked to alteration of net CO2 fluxes between land and atmosphere?
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