Picture by Ragnar Sigurdsson / Artic Images.com. Soil banks show the former appearance of areas with dwindling vegetation and soil cover. Higher resolution images available from rth@arctic-images.com (there is a licensing fee depending on the use). Imaggeo is the online open access geosciences image repository of the European Geosciences Union.
Monday paper: Modelling microbial exchanges between forms of soil nitrogen in contrasting ecosystems
Pansu, M., Machado, D., Bottner, P., and Sarmiento, L.: Modelling microbial exchanges between forms of soil nitrogen in contrasting ecosystems, Biogeosciences, 11, 915-927, doi:10.5194/bg-11-915-2014, 2014. The questions It is well known that N and C combine to form organic molecules due to biological processes, although they come together from different pathways. C is extracted from carbon dioxid ...[Read More]
Lightening the clay (II)
According to the previous post, tetrahedral and octahedral sheets combine to form layers, and we can find two main types of clay structures: structure 1:1 (one tetrahedron sheet and one octahedral sheet) and 2:1 (two tetrahedral sheets and one octahedral sheet). The basic structure of clays is this: Substitutions between cations may occur in the tetrahedral and octahedral sheets, resulting ...[Read More]
Connecting European connectivity research (COST Action ES1306)
Saskia Keesstra E-mail: saskia.keesstra@wur.nl Deputy President of the Soil System Sciences Division of the European Geosciences Union Why connecting connectivity research? Successful prediction of pathways of storm runoff generation and associated soil erosion is of considerable societal importance, including off-site impacts such as water quality and the provision of related ecosystem services. ...[Read More]