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Soil production function
Rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) are driving increases in global temperatures. Enhanced weathering of silicate rocks is a CO2 removal technology that could help mitigate anthropogenic climate change. Enhanced weathering adds powdered silicate rock to agricultural lands, accelerating natural chemical weathering, and is expected to rapidly draw down atmospheric CO2. However, differences between enhanced and natural weathering result in significant uncertainties about its potential efficacy. This article summarizes the research into enhanced weathering and the uncertainties of enhanced weathering due to the key differences with natural weathering, as well as future research directions.
Soil production function
Silicate minerals
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Soil production function
Outcrop
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The transformation of rock to soil affects the habitability of Earth because of its role in regulating climate and nourishing ecosystems. Soil formation has a strong biotic component because plants and associated microbes can influence the rate and trajectory of weathering processes. However, quantifying the effects of biota on weathering is challenging because such effects are interwoven with other biotic and abiotic influences. A need to resolve the role of vegetation in weathering is magnified by ongoing environmental change, which affects vegetation distribution and productivity. The changing environment is influencing plant interactions with rocks and biogeochemical cycles of rock-derived elements. Weathering processes also result in the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere making plant enhancement of weathering a potential mechanism of carbon sequestration and therefore of interest as one of the mechanisms for climate mitigation. This chapter examines the mechanisms of plant enhancement of weathering and evidence of how it operates on different scales, micro, mesocosm, field, watershed, and global. We also discuss how global environmental change, including elevated temperatures, atmospheric CO2, as well as agricultural practices are affecting plant enhancement of weathering. Finally, we conclude with questions that require further examination and a call for future directions of research.
Soil production function
Biogeochemical Cycle
Biota
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Terrestrial ecosystem
Habitability
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Weathering is a part of geomorphic processes leading to the disintegration and decomposition of rocks and minerals on the earth’s surface as a result of physical and chemical action that leads to the formation of soil being a most vital natural resource of rock weathering. Development of soils in an environment enhances plants dependence on it for growth, and man depends directly or indirectly on plants for food, thus the functions of soil as a fundamental interface, providing an excellent example of the integration among many parts of the earth system. Hence, geomorphology research being based on processes of the earth’s surfacing that result into most of the physical features seen on the face of the earth.
Soil production function
Earth materials
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Outcrop
Soil production function
Desert (philosophy)
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Abstract Chemical weathering in soils dissolves and alters minerals, mobilizes metals, liberates nutrients to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and may modulate Earth's climate over geologic time scales. Climate‐weathering relationships are often considered fundamental controls on the evolution of Earth's surface and biogeochemical cycles. However, surprisingly little consensus has emerged on if and how climate controls chemical weathering, and models and data from published literature often give contrasting correlations and predictions for how weathering rates and climate variables such as temperature or moisture are related. Here we combine insights gained from the different approaches, methods, and theory of the soil science, biogeochemistry, and geomorphology communities to tackle the fundamental question of how rainfall influences soil chemical properties. We explore climate‐driven variations in weathering and soil development in young, postglacial soils of New Zealand, measuring soil elemental geochemistry along a large precipitation gradient (400–4700 mm/yr) across the Waitaki basin on Te Waipounamu, the South Island. Our data show a strong climate imprint on chemical weathering in these young soils. This climate control is evidenced by rapid nonlinear changes along the gradient in total and exchangeable cations in soils and in the increased movement and redistribution of metals with rainfall. The nonlinear behavior provides insight into why climate‐weathering relationships may be elusive in some landscapes. These weathering thresholds also have significant implications for how climate may influence landscape evolution and the release of rock‐derived nutrients to ecosystems, as landscapes that transition to wetter climates across this threshold may weather and deplete rapidly.
Soil production function
Biogeochemical Cycle
Biogeochemistry
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Bedrock
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This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction What makes arid environments unusual in terms of weathering systems? Theoretical underpinnings of weathering systems research Current weathering study methods Linking processes to form in arid weathering systems Explaining the development of weathering landforms in arid environments Weathering rates in arid environments Arid weathering and landscape evolution Scale and arid weathering systems Acknowledgement References
Soil production function
Landform
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