Abstract
The preservation of soil organic carbon (OC) is an effective way to decelerate the emission of CO2 emission. However, the coregulation of pore structure and mineral composition in OC stabilization remains elusive. We employed the in situ nondestructive oxidation of OC by low-temperature ashing (LTA) combined with near edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS), high-resolution microtomography (μ-CT), field emission electron probe microanalysis (FE-EPMA) with C-free embedding, and novel Cosine similarity measurement to investigate the C retention in different aggregate fractions of contrasting soils. Pore structure and minerals contributed equally (ca. 50%) to OC accumulation in macroaggregates, while chemical protection played a leading role in C retention with 53.4%-59.2% of residual C associated with minerals in microaggregates. Phyllosilicates were discovered to be more prominent than Fe (hydr)oxides in C stabilization. The proportion of phyllosilicates-associated C (52.0%-61.9%) was higher than that bound with Fe (hydr)oxides (45.6%-55.3%) in all aggregate fractions tested. This study disentangled quantitatively for the first time a trade-off between physical and chemical protection of OC varying with aggregate size and the different contributions of minerals to OC preservation. Incorporating pore structure and mineral composition into C modeling would optimize the C models and improve the soil C content prediction.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.