Hello all,
Please conisder submitting abstracts to our Goldschmidt session (09b) entitled, "Understanding the Critical Zone Using the Composition of Particles, Solutes, and Gases Transported by Rivers." The keynote will be delivered by Dr. Hella Wittmann-Oelze (GFZ Potsdam). Abstracts are due 3/29.
-Drs. Mark Torres (Rice) and Jotautas Baronas (Cambridge)
Session Description: Earth’s critical zone (CZ) is where water, minerals, and biota meet, resulting in interactions that shape and respond to the climate and structure of landscapes. The distribution of water, minerals, and biota is heterogeneous over space and time, posing challenges to the quantification and mechanistic understanding of the processes taking place within the CZ. Rivers, by transporting materials out of the CZ, capture the net results of these processes and can yield crucial insights integrated over landscape-scale areas of (potentially) variable morphology, lithology, and climate. This session welcomes contributions that make use of the chemical and isotopic composition of river transported materials over a range of spatial and temporal scales to better understand the inner workings of the CZ. Any studies utilizing elemental or molecular concentrations, as well as traditional and non-traditional isotope signatures of riverine sediments, solutes, and gases are welcome. In particular, we encourage contributions that employ novel approaches, such as the combination of geophysical and geochemical measurements, lab and field observations, multi-proxy studies, high temporal and/or spatial resolution datasets, new conceptual models, and others.