Soil inorganic carbon content from great plains of the United States of America and Pampas of Argentina

This dataset compiles soil carbonate (i.e., soil inorganic carbon or SIC) content (% C) up to 7.8 m depth under natural vegetation (grassland or woodland) and cropland (rain-fed or irrigated). The dataset was collected to examine whether SIC content changes with decades-old agricultural conversion of natural vegetation.

SIC represent more than a quarter of the terrestrial carbon pool and are often considered to be relatively stable, with fluxes significant only on geologic timescales. However, given the importance of climatic water balance on SIC accumulation, we tested the hypothesis that increased soil water storage and transport resulting from cultivation may enhance dissolution of SIC, altering their local stock at decadal timescales. We compared SIC storage to 7.3 m depth in eight sites across the Great Plains of the United States of America and the Pampas grasslands of Argentina, each site having paired plots of native vegetation and rain-fed croplands, and half of the sites having additional irrigated cropland plots.

We took soil samples down to 8.5 m depth using a direct-push coring rig in the US sites and hand augers at the Argentinean sites. Sampling increments were every 0.3 m in the top 0.61 m of the soil and every 0.61 m thereafter in the US sites, and every 0.2 m to 1 m depth, then every 0.3 m to 4 m depth, and every 0.5 m thereafter in the Argentina sites. Sieved and homogenized soil samples were oven-dried at 60°C for for SIC measurement with a Carlo Erba Elemental Analyzer using the two-temperature combustion method. SIC contents are expressed as %C by weight; we note that this differs from carbonate contents reported by local soil surveys, which are %CaCO3 by weight. Inorganic carbon contents (%C) of the soil and carbonate nodules by depth were multiplied by soil and nodule weights and summed to estimate SIC storage.

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Cite this as

Kim, John H, Jobbagy, Esteban, Richter, Daniel D, Trumbore, Susan E, Jackson, Robert B (2020). Dataset: Soil inorganic carbon content from great plains of the United States of America and Pampas of Argentina. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.920703

DOI retrieved: 2020

Additional Info

Field Value
Imported on November 30, 2024
Last update November 30, 2024
License CC-BY-4.0
Source https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.920703
Author Kim, John H
Given Name John H
Family Name Kim
More Authors
Jobbagy, Esteban
Richter, Daniel D
Trumbore, Susan E
Jackson, Robert B
Source Creation 2020
Publication Year 2020
Resource Type text/tab-separated-values - filename: Kim-etal_2020
Subject Areas
Name: Ecology

Related Identifiers
Title: Agricultural acceleration of soil carbonate weathering
Identifier: https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15207
Type: DOI
Relation: References
Source: Global Change Biology
Authors: Kim John H , Jobbagy Esteban , Richter Daniel D , Trumbore Susan E , Jackson Robert B .