CAREER: Retention and Mobility of Beryllium in Soils and Sedimentary Environments

维护土壤对于维持世界上不断增长的人口至关重要。该项目旨在通过开发一种测量现代地貌变化和重建过去地球状况的工具，加强对土壤可持续性的科学理解。该项目将有助于为一位有前途的女性地球科学家的职业生涯奠定基础。她将为发展一支能够应对社会环境挑战的多元化劳动力队伍做出贡献。她在这个项目上的努力将突出土壤作为一种资源的重要性，并通过K-12教育和一项名为“土壤厨房”的公民科学活动扩大公民对其所在社区的污染物的认识，该活动将在白宫倡议确定为经济需要和社区振兴的“应许区域”之一进行。这一跨学科项目旨在提高我们对使用铍同位素作为工具跟踪景观中沉积物运动的局限性和机会的理解。吸附在沉积物上的铍同位素现在被广泛测量，以了解土壤颗粒的运动和自然反馈。然而，我们对吸附和解吸过程的机制缺乏了解，这些过程对于解释新数据至关重要。这个项目将使用实验室实验和现场测量相结合的方法来了解铍的迁移率，以及它可以告诉我们关于地球现在和过去的临界区的信息。该项目将邀请一支由本科生、研究生和一名博士后学者组成的团队参与这项工作的各个方面。数据将在NSF支持的数据库中存档。

Maintenance of soil is critically important for sustaining the world's growing population. This project aims to enhance scientific understanding of soil sustainability by developing a tool for measuring modern landscape change and reconstructing past Earth conditions. The project will help build the foundation for the career of a promising female earth scientist. She will contribute towards the development of a diverse workforce capable of tackling society's environmental challenges. Her efforts on this project will highlight the importance of soil as a resource and broaden citizen awareness of pollutants in their neighborhoods through K-12 education and a citizen-science activity called "Soil Kitchen", which will take place in one of the "Promise Zones" identified by the White House initiative as an area of economic need and community revitalization.This interdisciplinary project aims to improve our understanding of the limitations and opportunity of using beryllium isotopes as a tool for tracking sediment movement on landscapes. Beryllium isotopes sorbed to sediments are now being measured extensively to understand movement of soil particles and natural feedbacks. However, we lack understanding of the mechanisms of adsorption and desorption processes that are critical for the interpretation of new data. This project will use a combination of laboratory experiments and field-scale measurements to understand beryllium mobility and what it can tell us about the Earth's critical zone today and in the past. The project will engage a team of undergraduate students, graduate students, and a postdoctoral scholar in all aspects of the work. Data will be archived in NSF-supported databases.