Critical Zone Exploration Network

A fundamental goal of CZEN is to encourage and promote interdisciplinary research among a network of sites, people and data that span environmental gradients. Until recently the fledgling network has worked to establish the most promising sites with only an eye toward the final goal. But recent awards by the National Science Foundation to support Critical Zone science proposals provide an important step in more quickly building the network. Researchers in the U.S. are encouraged to write proposals to pursue research that crosses the sites within CZEN. Follow the links below to read the full proposals.

A project entitled “Using a Critical Zone Exploration Network to Quantify Controls on Earth’s Regolith”, under the direction of Sue Brantley and Tim White, is effective August 15, 2008 through July 31, 2010. The project focuses on the overarching hypothesis that lithology, climate, and residence or exposure time can be used to predict the thickness and chemical nature of regolith. The project represents a significant expansion of the existing network of Critical Zone observatories and seed sites by providing financial support for the development of four new sites, truly establishing cross-site environmental gradients.

A second project entitled “The Effect of Climate on the Terrestrial Sulfur Cycle”, under the direction of Ron Amundson, Whendee Silver, and R.C. Rhew is effective July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2011. The overarching goal is to understand the role of climate and life on the soil S cycle and its isotopic composition, and begin to quantify the processes behind depth dependent characteristics of S. The project uses CZEN sites from the wet to dry end of Earth, and highlights the importance of the network: it allows researchers the use of existing sites as their “laboratory” to address a variety of questions that cannot be answered at a single site.