John Quinton, UK This post was also published simultaneously in G-Soil.
Monday paper: Soil carbon stocks and their variability across the forests, shrublands and grasslands of peninsular Spain
Doblas-Miranda, E., Rovira, P., Brotons, L., Martínez-Vilalta, J., Retana, J., Pla, M., and Vayreda, J. 2013. Soil carbon stocks and their variability across the forests, shrublands and grasslands of peninsular Spain. Biogeosciences, 10, 8353-8361. DOI: 10.5194/bg-10-8353-2013. Abstract Accurate estimates of C stocks and fluxes of soil organic carbon (SOC) are needed to assess the impact of climat ...[Read More]
Soils at Imaggeo: flying over the Saharan Cauldron
Carolina Cavazos-Guerra, Germany The Saharan desert has one of the most extreme climates on Earth. The dust loading and thermodynamics over this region are unique, and have major impacts on the climate of North Africa, Europe and the Atlantic. Fennec is a large-scale programme designed to tackle one of the world’s key climate regions by delivering the most comprehensive field campaign ever mounted ...[Read More]
Boring Soil Science strikes back
Many scientists are currently debating whether soil science is an academic field in which scientists are engaged in talking to each other, ignoring the rest of society. Of course, traditionally, the dissemination of soil science has been a difficult field. Among other problems, some scientists have reviewed the use of complicated jargon. Soil Science academics work in increasingly smaller and smal ...[Read More]
Monday paper: Interplay of riparian forest and groundwater in the hillslope hydrology of Sudanian West Africa (northern Benin)
Richard, A., Galle, S., Descloitres, M., Cohard, J.-M., Vandervaere, J.-P., Séguis, L., and Peugeot, C. 2013. Interplay of riparian forest and groundwater in the hillslope hydrology of Sudanian West Africa (northern Benin), Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 17, 5079-5096. DOI: 10.5194/hess-17-5079-2013. Abstract Forests are thought to play an important role in the regional dynamics of the West A ...[Read More]
Soil color never lies
Often, soil color is described using general terms such as “brown”, “red”, “dark”, etc. When I talk about this issue for the first time with my students of Soil Science, I use to ask them how to describe the color of a soil sample. Normally, in a few seconds, I get a list of color names ranging from dark brown to bright red, including “chocolate”, “coffee” and “ ...[Read More]
The Fire Research Institute, more than three decades of Fire Science
Jason Greenlee jasongreenlee@hotmail.com The Fire Research Institute (FRI) was founded in 1983 as a non-profit organization with the lofty goal of promoting world peace through fire science. The concept was stolen from Richard Nixon, who, you will remember, opened up relations between the US and China by sending a ping-pong team to visit China. I thought that more scientific interaction between na ...[Read More]
Monday paper: A dual isotope approach to isolate soil carbon pools of different turnover times
Torn, M. S., Kleber, M., Zavaleta, E. S., Zhu, B., Field, C. B., and Trumbore, S. E. 2013. A dual isotope approach to isolate soil carbon pools of different turnover times. Biogeosciences, 10, 8067-8081. DOI: 10.5194/bg-10-8067-2013. Abstract Soils are globally significant sources and sinks of atmospheric CO2. Increasing the resolution of soil carbon turnover estimates is important for predicting ...[Read More]
Seminar series: Applied Earth Observation Techniques for Archaeology and the Environment
These seminars aim to explore and promote the use of Earth Observation (EO) techniques for different aspects of archaeological and paleoenvironmental research, including prospection/detection, classification, mapping and modeling. The variety of EO-related topics that will be presented in these seminars reflects some of the current trends in remote sensing applications in archaeological contexts. ...[Read More]
Monday paper: Biological and physical influences on soil 14CO2 seasonal dynamics in a temperate hardwood forest
Phillips, C. L., McFarlane, K. J., Risk, D., and Desai, A. R. 2013. Biological and physical influences on soil 14CO2 seasonal dynamics in a temperate hardwood forest. Biogeosciences, 10, 7999-8012. DOI: 10.5194/bg-10-7999-2013. Abstract While radiocarbon (14C) abundances in standing stocks of soil carbon have been used to evaluate rates of soil carbon turnover on timescales of several years to cen ...[Read More]