Africa Project

Location: 

Bokspits, Botswana

Background: 

Using the Kalahari Transect as a natural laboratory, our primary goal here is to understand how root morphology and dynamics across a water-limited landscape influence vegetation and soil organic carbon. We’ll be collecting soil samples from around the roots of the different trees you researched yesterday.  With the help of principle investigator, Natalie Mladenov at the University of Colorado, I was able to practice the sampling techniques I’ll be using in the field before I left.  You can see this in the video here:

Situation: 

 I’ll need your help researching soil organic carbon.  We know that the organic matter in soil comes from the dead plants and animals that decompose and are broken down by microorganisms.  We also know that organic matter in soils (which contain carbon) are important for soil fertility, which helps to determine what types of vegetation can grow.  The amount of this soil organic carbon (SOC) depends on soil texture, climate, vegetation and what has been grown on the land.

Assignment: 

 While I’m collecting samples, can you figure out at least one method of testing the soil organic carbon of these soils?  If you do an internet search on “soil organic carbon,” perhaps you can give me a way to test the soils out here in the field without having to send everything back to the lab.

its hunter here is one method i got from this website http://www.eoearth.org/article/Soil_organic_carbon

A simple way to determine the SOM content of a soil is to burn off the organic matter in a furnace and determine the mass lost. To determine SOC an assumption can then be made that SOM is, on average, 58% C. This method is called ‘Loss on Ignition’. It is a very approximate method which varies in accuracy depending on the clay content of the soil.

Stacy Here: As hunter stated above, you can burn off the organic matter and determine the mass loss, you can also boil it down in a an acid dichromate solution, and then you ca nmeasure the mass.