New publication in ACS Earth & Space Chemistry
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsearthspacechem.3c00032
Meret co-authered a review article recently published in ACS Earth and Space Chemistry. The work was led by Emily Lacroix, who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lausanne. The article is part of a special issue on Environmental Redox Processes and Contaminant and Nutrient Dynamics.
Reduction-oxidation reactions in soils are paramount as they connect elemental cycles across the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere. Like many soil properties, redox conditions are unevenly distributed in soils across space and time. Unlike many other soil properties, however, soil redox heterogeneity is poorly defined, both on a conceptual and on an experimental level. Oxygen is a central regulator of soil redox conditions. Anoxic microsites are zones of oxygen depletion in otherwise oxic environments and they are the defining feature of redox heterogeneity in bulk oxic soils and sediments.
In this review article, we advocate for considering anoxic microsites as a critical component of soil functioning. We outline our current state of knowledge on soil redox heterogeneity and its role in elemental cycling, evaluate methods for identifying and characterizing anoxic microsites, and highlight past and current approaches to modeling anoxic microsites. We further outline ways for incorporating anoxic microsites and redox heterogeneity more broadly into our understanding of soil functioning.
If you are interested in learning more, you can read the full, open access article Consider the Anoxic Microsite: Acknowledging and Appreciating Spatiotemporal Redox Heterogeneity in Soils and Sediments on ACS Earth and Space Chemistry. This work is a collaboration of researchers from EPFL, the University of Lausanne, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Stanford University, the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and Emory University