Human and Natural Forcings of Critical Zone Dynamics and Evolution at the Calhoun Critical Zone Observatory

临界区是生物和地质系统的一个新概念，从植物的上部叶子延伸到土壤深处的地下水。科学家们认为这些系统是“综合的”，因为地上气候，植物，动物和人类管理都与地下生物，化学和物理从表层土壤到深层含水层相互作用。一个新的卡尔霍恩临界区天文台（CZO）位于美国南部的皮埃蒙特，从弗吉尼亚州延伸到亚拉巴马，一个以古老，深厚和高度风化的景观为特征的地区，在1800年至1950年期间经历了美国最严重的农业土壤侵蚀和土地和水退化。 新的Calhoun-CZO利用了美国农业部林务局位于南卡罗来纳州联合县的Calhoun实验林60多年来对土地退化和恢复的研究。CZO的研究人员和教育工作者来自杜克大学、格鲁吉亚大学、格鲁吉亚理工大学、堪萨斯大学、密西西比州立大学、罗阿诺克学院以及美国农业部林务局。卡尔霍恩CZO的一个关键目标是帮助整合土地管理，干扰和恢复到CZ科学。 为此，科学家们包括水文学家，土壤科学家，农学家和林业学家，地球化学家，生态学家和建模师，还有环境历史学家和人类学家。 总体假设是，土地利用加速与植被，大气，水和表层土壤的CZ过程，从而强调连接表面和深层次表面的组件和过程的CZ的时间和空间网络。 土地退化甚至可能使CZ的表面与其地下部分隔离，对水质、土壤肥力和植物生产力产生长期不利影响。 研究人员将集中研究CZ的演变，土地退化的恢复速度和CZ的重新整合。卡尔霍恩CZO是一个研究和教育中心。 CZO与杜克大学IGERT智能传感器网络培训中心有联系，每年的CZO科学会议将有口头和海报演示，讨论和培训课程，让科学家和学生平等参与。我们计划对地方，地区和国家公众进行多种宣传，包括多媒体科学，历史和基于社区的作品，从精装书到Facebook和Twitter的专栏文章。 CZO的一个重要重点是本科研究和教育。 这项工作的核心将是为本科生和高中生开发一套经过课堂测试的基于网络的实验室和课堂活动，部分基于卡尔霍恩CZO的实时和历史数据。

The Critical Zone is a new concept for the biological and geological system that extends from the upper leaves of plants to the groundwater deep below the soil. Scientists consider these systems to be "integrated" because aboveground climate, plants, animals, and human management all interact with the belowground biology, chemistry, and physics from surface soils to deep aquifers. A new Calhoun Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) is located in the USA's Southern Piedmont that extends from Virginia to Alabama, a region characterized by ancient, deep, and highly weathered landscapes that between 1800 to 1950 experienced some of the most severe agricultural soil erosion and land and water degradation in America. The new Calhoun-CZO leverages more than 60 years of research on land degradation and recovery based at the USDA Forest Service's Calhoun Experimental Forest in Union County, SC. The CZO researchers and educators are from Duke University, University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, University of Kansas, Mississippi State University, Roanoke College, as well as the USDA Forest Service. A key objective of the Calhoun CZO is to help integrate land management, disturbance, and recovery into CZ science. To that end, the scientists include hydrologists, soil scientists, agriculturists and foresters, geochemists, ecologists, and modelers but also an environmental historian and anthropologist. The overall hypothesis is that land use accelerates CZ processes associated with vegetation, atmosphere, water, and surface soils, thereby stressing temporal and spatial networks that connect surface and deep subsurface components and processes of the CZ. Land degradation may even isolate the CZ's surface from its subsurface components with adverse long-term consequences to water quality, soil fertility, and plant productivity. Researchers will focus their studies on CZ evolution, rates of recovery from land degradation, and CZ re-integration.The Calhoun-CZO is a center for research and education. The CZO is linked to a Duke University IGERT-training center on intelligent sensor networks, annual CZO science meetings will have oral and poster presentations, discussions, and training sessions that involve scientists and students on equal footing. We plan several kinds of outreach efforts to local, regional, and national publics with multi-media science, history, and community-based pieces from hardcover books to op-eds to Facebook and Twitter. An important emphasis of the CZO is on undergraduate research and education. Central to this effort will be the development of a set of classroom-tested, web-based laboratory and classroom activities for undergraduates and advanced high school students based, in part, on real-time and historic data from the Calhoun CZO.