1. Will Atkinson & Jana Suriano PEI Summer Research 2016
The Role of Minerals on the Cycling and Stability of Organic Carbon in Soils
Will Atkinson & Jana Suriano
PEI Summer Research 2016

2. Myneni Group Department of Geosciences
Molecular Environmental Geochemistry
Chemistry of natural organics
Biogeochemistry of surfaces
Ion solvation & aqueous chemistry

3. The environmental processes governing climate change
What happens to carbon in the terrestrial biosphere?

4. Soil organic matter (SOM) formation
debated

5. Importance of SOM NOT debated Lehmann 2015

6. The environmental processes governing climate change
What happens to SOM?

7. Organo-mineral interactions
What type of minerals?
What kind of compounds?
How do minerals AND om associate?
How is OM stabilized in soil?

8. Three areas of inquiry:
NOM
Model minerals
In situ soil samples
Lab adsorption experiments with OM, surface chemistry
Ecosystems with different OM, soil minerals and climate
Characteristics: DOM, POM, insoluble OM…

9. Model systems
Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR FT-IR)

10. Further investigation
Infrared spectroscopy (ATR FTIR)
Mass spectroscopy
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy
X-ray absorption spectroscopy  Synchrotron light source
…combine analytical techniques

11. DOM Sampling, June 2016

12. Analysis of Field Soil Samples

13. Partitioning Pine Barrens soil samples

14. Example IR spectra

15. Field Sites: Sierra Nevada Research Institute (CA) – 08/2016

16. Future Field Sites Tropical: Costa Rica or Panama Boreal: Alaska
Winter 2017?
Costa Rica: Área de Conservación Guanacaste
Panama: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
More Fe- and Al-oxide rich
Boreal: Alaska
Summer 2017
Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site
More clay-rich
www4.uwsp.edu

17. Acknowledgements Satish Myneni The Myneni lab group
Melissa Thaw (University of California-Merced)
Princeton Environmental Institute
Smith-Newton Family Scholars Program