QEIB: Collaborative Research: Erosional Removal and Redistribution of Soil Organic Carbon at Upland Ecosystems

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This project tests and explores the hypothesis that soil erosion in upland ecosystems constitutes a measurable and significant sink of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The hypothesis is being tested in watersheds where soil erosion rates have been previously determined using cosmogenic isotope measurements. At each field site, the researchers will excavate numerous soil profiles, measure their total carbon storage, calculate rates of carbon loss from convex portions of the landscape, and calculate storage in concave areas (hollows), using a diffusion modeling approach. Other ancillary soil organic matter properties (C:N ratio, N content, and N isotope composition) predicted to change systematically with erosion, will be measured to further test and confirm our hypothesis. The work will address one of the great uncertainties about the role of soils in the global carbon budget.This is a collaborative proposal with Heimsath (0128995).