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FOR 995 P6: 14C AMS as a tracer and dating tool in the study of paddy soil carbon dynamics
Project
Project code: DFG FOR 995
Contract period: 01.01.2008
- 31.12.2010
Purpose of research: Basic research
Paddy soils are open systems with a regular input of mineral and organic matter. Organic matter is lost through mineralization as gas (CO2, CH4), while both organic and mineral components are lost through leaching. Changing paddy soil properties thus not only reflect in-situ evolution of the soil material with time, but also the various organic and mineral mass inputs and outputs. Understanding the “Biogeochemistry of paddy soil evolution” requires that dynamic transformation and transport processes of both organic and mineral matter are quantified and that residence times of key organic and mineral “pools” are determined. 13C and 14C isotopes can be used to trace carbon through organic transformations, independent of the molecules in which they are incorporated. 13C is largely limited to laboratory and field experiments with artificially or naturally labelled carbon. 14C provides both a recent input label through the rapidly changing atmospheric 14C concentrations caused by atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons since 1954, and an indication of age before the testing through radioactive decay. 14C can thus discriminate between “old” and “young” carbon in the various pools and specific organic compounds of the paddy soils of the Zhejiang chronosequence and show whether their presence is the result of recalcitrance and preservation/storage or of import and/or microbially mediated transformations and thus help to detail the various pathways of carbon cycling in paddy soils.
Section overview
Subjects
- Soil science
Collaborative Project
Funding programme
Excutive institution
Leibniz-Laboratory for Radiometric Dating and Stable Isotope Research
