Judith's paper in SSRL Headline News

2019-01-31

While a small amount of copper is essential for living organisms, too much copper contaminating our soils can be toxic and pose a serious problem. Copper has an affinity for organic matter in soils, where it mainly exists in the two redox states Cu(I) and Cu(II). In soils that fluctuate in redox conditions, the mobility of copper through the environment can be hard to predict. Mofette sites, produced by CO₂ degassing usually found in seismically active areas, are good natural laboratories due to their wide range of soil redox conditions and of soil organic matter composition within a small area. Near the sites of CO₂ degassing, the soil is anoxic and organic matter does not decompose well. The soils transition to oxic conditions just a few meters away. A team of researchers studied the behavior of copper in the natural gradient of a mofette site in the Czech Republic.