Soil Carbon Sequestration and the Role of Earthworms in an Enhanced Weathering Mesocosm Experiment

Vienne, Arthur; Frings, Patrick J.; Poblador, Sílvia; Steinwidder, Laura; Rijnders, Jet; Schoelynck, Jonas; Vindušková, Olga; Vicca, Sara

doi:10.2139/ssrn.4449286

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…In a similar experiment, Yan et al (2023) found significantly increased CO 2 emissions due to soil organic carbon mineralization when mixing 12 different soil types with wollastonite (although wollastonite application is extremely high at 10 wt%). Vienne et al (2023) found significantly reduced CO 2 emissions in a mesocosm experiment with high (100 t ha -1 ) basalt application rates compared to their control, although the addition of earthworms to the basalt plots increased the emission. Preliminary results of automated CO 2 measurements point towards more significant and consistent data than for all other phases (plant, soil, water), but identify an overall increase in CO 2 efflux from soils (Paessler et al, 2023).…”

Section: Gaseous Phasementioning

confidence: 80%

“…Novel isotope tracers, such as magnesium (Mg), lithium (Li), silicon (Si), and stable strontium (Sr) can be used to trace processes such as secondary mineral formation. The majority of work to date on these isotope systems has revolved around quantifying fractionation factors and natural element cycling (Penniston-Dorland et al, 2017;Teng et al, 2017), but EW-specific applications are increasing (Pogge von Strandmann et al, 2021;Vienne et al, 2023). For these isotopic tracers strong fractionations are induced by interactions with secondary minerals, thus potentially allowing quantification of secondary mineral formation using isotope mass balance, that could inform on cation loss to exchangeable phases, or potential re-release of CO 2 during secondary mineral formation (see section 3.3; Campbell et al, 2022).…”

Section: Novel Isotope Tracersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite being important contributions to the nascent field of gas phase measurements, a major limitation of the flux chamber approach (Vienne et al, 2023) is that those are point measurements of the highly variable daily CO 2 flux curve. The extrapolations of these point measurements might result in significantly different results depending on the spatio-temporal pattern with which measurements have been taken.…”

Section: Gaseous Phasementioning

confidence: 99%

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A Review of Measurement for Quantification of Carbon Dioxide Removal by Enhanced Weathering in Soil

Clarkson,

Larkin,

Swoboda

et al. 2023

Preprint

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All pathways which limit global temperature rise to <2oC above pre-industrial temperatures now require carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in addition to rapid greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Novel and durable CDR strategies need to rapidly scale over the next few decades in order to reach Paris Agreement Targets. Terrestrial enhanced weathering (EW) involves the acceleration of natural weathering processes via the deployment of crushed rock feedstocks, typically Ca- and Mg-rich silicates, in soils. While models predict this has the potential to remove multiple gigatonnes of CO2 annually, as an open-system pathway, the measurement (monitoring), reporting, and verification (MRV) of carbon removal and storage is challenging. Here we provide a review of the current literature showing the state-of-play of different methods for monitoring EW. We focus on geochemical characterization of weathering processes at the weathering site itself, acknowledging that the final storage of carbon is largely in the oceans, with potential losses occurring during transfer. There are two main approaches for measuring EW, one focused on solid phase measurements, including exchangeable phases, and the other on the aqueous phase. Additionally, gas phase measurements have been employed to understand CO2 fluxes, but can be dominated by short-term organic carbon cycling. We stress that, although there is complexity in tracing EW CDR in the natural field environment, established literature validates existing approaches, and each approach has strengths and limitations. The complexity inherent in open-system CDR pathways is navigable through surplus measurement strategies and well designed experiments, which we highlight are critical in the early stage of the EW CDR industry.

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Section: Gaseous Phasementioning

confidence: 80%

Section: Novel Isotope Tracersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gaseous Phasementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A Review of Measurement for Quantification of Carbon Dioxide Removal by Enhanced Weathering in Soil

Clarkson,

Larkin,

Swoboda

et al. 2023

Preprint

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“…Note that these calculations do not take into account changes in olivine surface area and that the experimental periods of the lower temperature experiments were longer. Further, the alkalinityenhancement carbon drawdown pathway (Buckingham et al, 2022;West et al, 2023) and the biotic pathway of EW (Goll et al, 2021) are not covered in this experiment as biota (plants, fungi, microbes and macro-vertebrates such as earth worms) can strongly affect weathering rates and physicochemical soil processes (Versteegh et al, 2014;Verbruggen et al, 2021;Vicca et al, 2022;Vienne et al, 2023). As mentioned above, the sequestration potential inferred in this study should hence be regarded a conservative estimate, which might also be indicated by ambient condition carbon dioxide sequestration rates of dunite and ultramafic lithologies, respectively, being higher than the high temperature consumption rates obtained in this experiment (Schopka et al, 2011;Amann et al, 2022).…”

Section: Co 2 Sequestration Potentialmentioning

confidence: 99%

The dissolution of olivine added to soil at 32°C: the fate of weathering products and its implications for enhanced weathering at different temperatures

Iff,

Renforth,

Pogge von Strandmann

2024

Front. Clim.

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The amendment of agricultural soils by crushed silicate minerals has been proposed to enhance weathering rates and facilitate carbon dioxide (CO2) removal from the atmosphere. Laboratory dissolution experiments typically provide weathering rates that are significantly higher than those observed under natural conditions, while field studies are limited in the nature of data they can collect. This study uses an experimental setup that aims to emulate natural field conditions in a controlled setting using soil cores retrieved from UK cropland amended with crushed olivine at 32°C. Results are compared to enhanced weathering experiments run at 4°C and 19°C under otherwise identical conditions. The data reveal temperature-dependent variations in the behaviour of different elements, most importantly Mg and Si, with silicon being retained at moderate temperatures and magnesium being retained at higher temperatures. These patterns are most likely due to different retention mechanisms, notably Si reprecipitation (e.g. as cation-depleted Si-enriched mineral surface coatings) and cation exchange (affecting Mg, but to a lesser degree Si), such that the influence of cation exchange should be accounted for when interpreting enhanced weathering field data. We therefore recommend that estimates of carbon sequestration should not be based on the behaviour of individual elements. A temperature effect on the weathering rate of olivine added to soil columns is observed with the weathering rate being higher at 32°C than at 19°C and 4°C, and significantly lower than laboratory experiment-derived weathering rates. This further emphasises the need for enhanced weathering field trials, as simple laboratory-derived rates cannot be used to assess the feasibility of enhanced weathering measures. The carbon dioxide capture potential at 32°C is conservatively estimated at ~115 t CO2 km-2 yr-1 assuming an olivine amendment rate of 12.7 kg m-2. Our data suggests that soil accumulation of heavy metals like Cu and Cr at high temperatures (hence high weathering rates) is non-dangerous, however, Ni concentrations in the effluent solution are close to EU guidelines while Cr and Cu are considerably lower than guidelines. All of these conclusions have implications for the application of enhanced weathering for carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere.

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Basalt addition improves the performance of young grassland monocultures under more persistent weather featuring longer dry and wet spells

Reynaert

Vienne

Boeck

et al. 2023

Agricultural and Forest Meteorology

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Soil Carbon Sequestration and the Role of Earthworms in an Enhanced Weathering Mesocosm Experiment

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

A Review of Measurement for Quantification of Carbon Dioxide Removal by Enhanced Weathering in Soil

A Review of Measurement for Quantification of Carbon Dioxide Removal by Enhanced Weathering in Soil

The dissolution of olivine added to soil at 32°C: the fate of weathering products and its implications for enhanced weathering at different temperatures

Basalt addition improves the performance of young grassland monocultures under more persistent weather featuring longer dry and wet spells

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