From the NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, a surprising finding.
New source of global nitrogen discovered: Earth’s bedrock
Nitrogen from bedrock can result in side-by-side productive forests and barren acidic areas
For centuries, the thinking has been that all the nitrogen available for plant growth worldwide comes from the atmosphere. But a new study by National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded researchers at the University of California (UC), Davis, shows that more than a quarter of that nitrogen is derived from the weathering of Earth’s bedrock.
The results, published this week in the journal Science, demonstrate that up to 26 percent of the nitrogen in ecosystems is sourced from rocks, with the remaining amount from the atmosphere.
“This research reveals important connections among the atmosphere, the biosphere, and the rocks at Earth’s surface,” said Richard Yuretich, a program director in NSF’s Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the study.
Scott Morford
The findings show that rock weathering is a globally significant source of nitrogen to soils and ecosystems, according to co-author and team leader Ben Houlton of UC Davis. “That runs counter to the centuries-long paradigm that has laid the foundation for the environmental sciences,” said Houlton.
Geology and carbon sequestration
Rock-derived nitrogen may fuel the growth of forests and grasslands, and allow them to sequester more carbon dioxide than previously thought. Mapping the nutrient profiles in rocks for their carbon uptake potential could help drive conservation efforts, the researchers said.
“Geology might have a huge control over which systems can take up carbon dioxide and which ones can’t,” Houlton said. “When thinking about carbon sequestration, the geology of the planet can help guide our decisions.”
Mysterious gap
The work also helps solve the “case of the missing nitrogen.” For decades, scientists have recognized that more nitrogen accumulates in soils and plants than can be explained by input from the atmosphere alone, but researchers couldn’t pinpoint what was missing.
“We show that the paradox of nitrogen is literally ‘written in stone,'” said co-author Scott Morford of UC Davis. “There’s enough nitrogen in rocks, and it breaks down fast enough, to explain the cases where there has been this mysterious gap.”
In previous work, Houlton and Morford analyzed rocks collected from the Klamath Mountains in northern California, and found that the rocks and the surrounding trees contained large amounts of nitrogen.
In the current study, they built on that work, analyzing the entire planet’s nitrogen balance; the scientists developed a model to assess rock nitrogen availability on a global scale.
Rewriting textbooks
“These results are going to require rewriting textbooks,” said Kendra McLauchlan, a program director in NSF’s Division of Environmental Biology, which co-funded the research. “While there were hints that plants could use rock-derived nitrogen, this discovery shatters the paradigm that the ultimate source of nitrogen is the atmosphere. A discovery of this magnitude will open up a new era of research on this essential nutrient.”
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This research begs the question: Why is nitrogen an “essential nutrient” while carbon dioxide is a “pollutant”?
Good question.
The fact is that carbon dioxide, water and nitrogen are all essential nutrients, the more of which, the better. IOW, the opposite of “pollutants”.
Carbon sequestration = final solution
The term is disgusting and a testament to the duplicity and ignorance of the useful idiot.
Pass the manure please.
Are the carbonate rich rocks from the Colorado Plateau, through which the Colorado River has cut to afford the header view from the Nankoweep Granaries, particularly rich in Nitrogen? If so, what about the alternating shallow ocean (above the carbonate compensation depth) to fluvial Paleozoic section above the river at Nankoweep, in a generally tropical paleolatitude; lead to more N fixation?
Type I diamonds, which make up 99% of all diamonds, contain nitrogen bound to carbon atoms in it’s crystal lattice. Light absorption in these creates coloured diamonds, most commonly yellow. Diamonds formed in the mantle at depths of 150 to 180km in what is known as the diamond stability field in a layer below thick, cooler stable platform crust >2
.5 billion years ago. Yes, nitrogen in the mantle rocks.
Formation of diamond pipes is an extraordinary geological event. Magma from the mantle at depths some 200 – 220 km containing no diamonds, rises up, punching through the diamond stability field at ~20km/hr and entraining diamonds in it. It accelerates to ~40km/hr where it penetrates into the base of the crust and, loaded with volatile, continues to accelerate as the pressure reduces attaining a velocity of ~1200km/hr as it blasts through the Earth’s surface, sending lava up into the clouds leaving a gaping void temporarily until the 10s of millions of tonnes of diamond bearing material fall largely back into the hole along with souvenirs from the surface like trees, local rocks, etc that are blasted upwards and others at the edge toppling into the hole. A few latter puffs and rattles later, the material solidifies into a carrot-shaped kimberlite (or rarer, champagne glass-shaped lamproite rock).
Fantastic, huh! Here is picture of a chunk of redwood found at 300m depth in the Ekati diamond mine at the Arctic circle. It was preserved as real wood and is dated at 53 million years. Hmmm… A California climate above the Arctic circle in the Eocene period. Global warming unprecedented you say. Planetary doom you say? I say Garden of Eden Earth if we get the warming we are promised.
https://www.livescience.com/23374-fossil-forest-redwood-diamond-mine.html
An example of V Larin’s Hydridic Earth, I say.
Nitrogen is very dangerous. If the concentration of N2 in the atmosphere were to increase by just 25% then all animal life on Earth would become extinct.
Hilarious! 🙂
Nitrogen is a non-toxic gas. It’s dangerous for life to reduce the concentration of oxygen in air due to nitrogen increase.
omg … it never ceases to amaze me how ignorant people are of basic geology concepts.
Geo = Earth
ology = Study of
oh yeah, wow, Geology just might be able to inform one about the entire earth, solid-liquid-gas-plasma-space system.
Where (on earth) do they think the atmosphere and oceans came from?
scheeeeeeech! Eeeeeeeediots.
Breaking news: sunlight comes from the sun.
“While there were hints that plants could use rock-derived nitrogen, this discovery shatters the paradigm that the ultimate source of nitrogen is the atmosphere. A discovery of this magnitude will open up a new era of research on this essential nutrient.”
Read- CO2 is looking a bit dicey so we’d better pick on nitrogen if the grants are to keep flowing.