Sampling soil and sediment depth profiles at a fine resolution with a new device for determining physical,chemical and biological properties: the Fine Increment Soil Collector (FISC)     

Lionel Mabit  Katrin Meusburger  Andra-Rada Iurian  Philip N. Owens  Arsenio Toloza  Christine Alewell 《Journal of Soils and Sediments》2014,14(3):630-636

Purpose

Many environmental investigations (empirical and modelling) and theories are based on reliable information on the depth distribution of physical, chemical and biological properties in soils and sediments. However, such depth profiles are not easy to determine using current approaches, and, consequently, new devices are needed that are able to sample soils and sediments at fine resolutions.

Materials and methods

We have designed an economic, portable, hand-operated surface soil/sediment sampler—the Fine Increment Soil Collector (FISC)—which allows for the close control of incremental soil/sediment sampling and for easy recovery of the material collected by a simple screw-thread extraction system. This innovative sampling system was developed originally for the beryllium-7 (⁷Be) approach in soil and sediment redistribution research. To ensure reliable estimates of soil erosion and sediment deposition from ⁷Be measurements, the depth distribution of this short-lived fallout radionuclide in soil/sediment at the resolution of millimetres is a crucial requirement. This major challenge of the ⁷Be approach can be met by using the FISC.

Results and discussion

We demonstrate the usefulness of the FISC by characterising the depth distribution of ⁷Be at increments of 2.5 mm for a soil reference site in Austria. The activity concentration of ⁷Be at the uppermost increment (0–2.5 mm) was ca. 14 Bq kg^?1 and displayed decreasing activity with depth. Using most conventional sampling devices (i.e. the scraper-plate system), the most accurate depth increment would have been 10 mm, and the activity concentration at the surface would have been considerably lower. Consequently, coarser sampling would have influenced estimates of ⁷Be-derived soil erosion and deposition. The potential application for other soil/sediment properties, such as nutrients (e.g. phosphorus), contaminants and carbon are also discussed.

Conclusions

By enabling soil and sediment profiles to be sampled at a depth resolution of millimetres, the FISC has the potential to provide key information when addressing several environmental and geoscientific issues, such as the precise depth distributions of soil/sediment nutrients, contaminants and biological properties.  相似文献