It has been hypothesized that many soil profi les reach a steady-state thickness. In this work, such profi les were simulated using a one-dimensional model of reaction with advective and diffusive solute transport. A model 'rock' is considered, consisting of albite that weathers to kaolinite in the presence of chemically inert quartz. The model yields three different steadystate regimes of weathering. At the lowest erosion rates, a local-equilibrium regime is established where albite is completely depleted in the weathering zone. This regime is equivalent to the transport-limited regime described in the literature. With an increase in erosion rate, transition and kinetic regimes are established. In the transition regime, both albite and kaolinite are present in the weathering zone, but albite does not persist to the soil-air interface. In the weathering-limited regime, here called the kinetic regime, albite persists to the soil-air interface. The steady-state thickness of regolith decreases with increasing erosion rate in the local equilibrium and transition regimes, but in the kinetic regime, this thickness is independent of erosion rate. Analytical expressions derived from the model are used to show that regolith production rates decrease exponentially with regolith thickness. The steady-state regolith thickness increases with the Darcy velocity of the pore fl uid, and in the local equilibrium regime may vary markedly with small variations in this velocity and erosion rate. In the weathering-limited regime, the temperature dependences for chemical weathering rates are related to the activation energy for the rate constant for mineral reaction and to the ΔH of dissolution, while for local equilibrium regimes they are related to the ΔH only. The model illustrates how geochemical and geomorphological observations are related for a simple compositional system. The insights provided will be useful in interpreting natural regolith profi les.

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Weathering disaggregates rock into regolith – the fractured or granular earth material that sustains life on the continental land surface. Here, we investigate what controls the depth of regolith formed on ridges of two rock compositions with similar initial porosities in Virginia (USA). A priori, we predicted that the regolith on diabase would be thicker than on granite because the dominant mineral (feldspar) in the diabase weathers faster than its granitic counterpart. However, weathering advanced 20× deeper into the granite than the diabase. The 20 × ‐thicker regolith is attributed mainly to connected micron‐sized pores, microfractures formed around oxidizing biotite at 20 m depth, and the lower iron (Fe) content in the felsic rock. Such porosity allows pervasive advection and deep oxidation in the granite. These observations may explain why regolith worldwide is thicker on felsic compared to mafic rock under similar conditions. To understand regolith formation will require better understanding of such deep oxidation reactions and how they impact fluid flow during weathering. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Both vertical and lateral flows of rock and water occur within eroding hills. Specifically, when considered over geological timeframes, rock advects vertically upward under hilltops in landscapes experiencing uplift and erosion. Once rock particles reach the land surface, they move laterally and down the hillslope because of erosion. At much shorter timescales, meteoric water moves vertically downward until it reaches the regional water table and then moves laterally as groundwater flow. Water can also flow laterally in the shallow subsurface as interflow in zones of permeability contrast. Interflow can be perched or can occur during periods of a high regional water table. The depths of these deep and shallow water tables in hills fluctuate over time. The fluctuations drive biogeochemical reactions between water, CO 2 , O 2 , and minerals and these in turn drive fracturing. The depth intervals of water table fluctuation for interflow and groundwater flow are thus reaction fronts characterized by changes in composition, fracture density, porosity, and permeability. The shallow and deep reaction zones can separate over meters in felsic rocks. The zones act like valves that reorient downward unsaturated water flow into lateral saturated flow. The valves also reorient the upward advection of rock into lateral flow through solubilization. In particular, groundwater removes highly soluble, and interflow removes moderately soluble minerals. As rock and water moves through the system, hills may evolve toward a condition where the weathering advance rate, W, approaches the erosion rate, E. If W = E, the slopes of the deep and shallow reaction zones and the hillsides must allow removal of the most soluble, moderately soluble, and least soluble minerals respectively. A permeability architecture thus emerges to partition each evolving hill into dissolved and particulate material fluxes as it approaches steady state.

The base of the Critical Zone includes the mantle of altered soil and rock—regolith—that changes in response to chemical, physical, and biological processes occurring at Earth's surface. These processes are recorded in the chemistry of the regolith, and this long-term record can often be deciphered. For example, on eroding ridgetops where flows are generally downward for water and upward for earth material, element concentrations vary with depth to constitute depletion, addition, depletion-enrichment, and biogenic profiles. Models can be used to explore the records of mineral dissolution, atmospheric input, coupled dissolution-precipitation, and biolifting documented in these profiles. These models enable interpretation of the effects of time, climate, rates of erosion, and human and other biotic impacts on the profile patterns. By testing quantitative models against the long-term record of information in regolith, we will learn to project changes arising from human and natural perturbations of the Critical Zone.