
Field Test Finds Carbon Stored in Soils Even in Dry Climates
Adding crushed volcanic rock to cropland could play a key role in removing carbon from the air. In a field study, scientists at the University of California, Davis, and Cornell University found the technology stored carbon in the soil even during an extreme drought in California. The study was published in the journal Environmental Research Communications.
Rain captures carbon dioxide from the air as it falls and reacts with volcanic rock to lock up carbon. The process, called rock weathering, can take millions of years — too slow to offset global warming. But by crushing the rock into a fine dust, rock weathering speeds up. Previous studies have estimated this “enhanced” rock weathering could store 215 billion tons of carbon dioxide over the next 75 years if spread across croplands globally.
But until now the technology hasn’t been field-tested in dry climates.
“These reactions require water,” said lead author Iris Holzer, a doctoral candidate in soils and biogeochemistry in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources at UC Davis. “Since we’re interested in the global carbon storage potential of enhanced weathering, we need to understand if it can work in these drier climates and if different measurement approaches are effective. We were excited to observe carbon removal in this environment.”
California as a test case for storing carbon
Researchers applied crushed rock, both metabasalt and olivine, on 5 acres of a fallowed cornfield in the Sacramento Valley. They collected measurements during the winter months of 2020-2021. California was experiencing extreme drought at the time, with rainfall at 41% of its historical average.
The study found the plots with crushed rock stored 0.15 tons of carbon dioxide per hectare (2.47 acres) during the study compared to plots without crushed rock. Though researchers expect different weathering rates in different environments, if this amount of carbon was removed across all California cropland, it would be equivalent to taking 350,000 cars off the road every year.
“We’re definitely seeing evidence of weathering processes taking place on short time scales,” said Holzer. “Even the infrequent heavy rains we get in the West might be enough to drive enhanced rock weathering and remove carbon dioxide.”
Holzer said measuring and verifying that carbon storage at larger scales and following it over time is the next challenge.
Forty-one percent of Earth’s land surface is covered by drylands that are expanding due to climate change. Researchers said this makes investigating enhanced rock weathering in drylands increasingly important.
“When it comes to bending the global carbon curve, we are in a race against time,” said senior author Benjamin Z. Houlton, Ronald P. Lynch Dean of the Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “Our study demonstrates a new way to verify carbon dioxide removal via enhanced weathering, which is a critical leap forward for scaling this technology in croplands worldwide.”
Original Article: Adding Crushed Rock to Farmland Pulls Carbon Out of the Air
More from: University of California Davis | Cornell University
The Latest Updates from Bing News
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Crushed volcanic rock
- Earthquakes May Have Made The Eruption Of Mount Vesuvius Even Deadlier For The Ancient City Of Pompeii
Can you imagine witnessing a natural phenomenon as powerful as a volcanic eruption? The experience must be awe-inspiring but also incredibly terrifying. The intense heat radiating from the lava flows ...
- NASA’s Curiosity rover makes ‘mind-blowing’ discovery on Mars after accident
NASA’s Curiosity rover made a “mind-blowing” discovery on Mars – yellowish-green crystals of pure sulfur, never before seen on Earth’s mysterious red neighbour, according to scientists.
- Accidentally exposed yellowish-green crystals reveal ‘mind-blowing’ finding on Mars, scientists say
While surveying the site of an ancient channel on Mars, the Curiosity rover ran over a rock and discovered pure sulfur on the red planet for the first time.
- Pompeii suffered a second, devastating disaster — while fighting for survival after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius
Earthquake activity as damaging as the eruption of Mount Vesuvius bears part of the blame for the total devastation of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii in 79 A.D., new research suggests.
- Curiosity Rover Finds ‘Treasure Chest’ Full Of Crystals On Mars
Scientists were stunned when a rock that NASA's Curiosity rover drove over cracked open to reveal something never seen before on Mars: a geode full of yellow crystals.
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Enhanced weathering
- The state of carbon removal in 3 charts
The carbon removal industry lags behind where it needs to go in the next 6 years to fulfill the Paris Agreement.
- Carbon capture volcanic rock 'boosts farm yields'
This rock is then ground into a powder which sucks up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during rainfall in a process known as enhanced rock weathering. UNDO began experimenting with the powder in ...
- FEATURE: Enhanced weathering alliance seeks EU certification for carbon removals
The Enhanced Weathering Alliance (EWA) has denounced an “opaque” process for developing CO2 removal certification methodologies at EU level, calling on the European Commission to provide more clarity ...
- New dataset reveals accelerated global soil phosphorus release at higher temperatures
A study published in Science Advances shows that phosphorus (P) release from soils is enhanced at higher mean annual temperatures (MAT). This finding is based on a new compilation of data on global ...
- Helping Climate by Reducing Farm Nitrous Oxide
A research team from the University of Sheffield’s Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation used a cutting-edge earth system model to simulate the effects of reducing N2O emissions, using ...