6
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
1 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: not found
      • Article: not found

      Soil carbon distribution and site characteristics in hyper-arid soils of the Atacama Desert: A site with Mars-like soils

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisher
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Related collections

          Most cited references66

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Biological feedbacks in global desertification.

          Studies of ecosystem processes on the Jornada Experimental Range in southern New Mexico suggest that longterm grazing of semiarid grasslands leads to an increase in the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of water, nitrogen, and other soil resources. Heterogeneity of soil resources promotes invasion by desert shrubs, which leads to a further localization of soil resources under shrub canopies. In the barren area between shrubs, soil fertility is lost by erosion and gaseous emissions. This positive feedback leads to the desertification of formerly productive land in southern New Mexico and in other regions, such as the Sahel. Future desertification is likely to be exacerbated by global climate warming and to cause significant changes in global biogeochemical cycles.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: not found
            • Article: not found

            Global Multi-Resolution Topography synthesis

              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: not found
              • Article: not found

              Mars-like soils in the Atacama Desert, Chile, and the dry limit of microbial life.

              The Viking missions showed the martian soil to be lifeless and depleted in organic material and indicated the presence of one or more reactive oxidants. Here we report the presence of Mars-like soils in the extreme arid region of the Atacama Desert. Samples from this region had organic species only at trace levels and extremely low levels of culturable bacteria. Two samples from the extreme arid region were tested for DNA and none was recovered. Incubation experiments, patterned after the Viking labeled-release experiment but with separate biological and nonbiological isomers, show active decomposition of organic species in these soils by nonbiological processes.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Journal
                Advances in Space Research
                Advances in Space Research
                Elsevier BV
                02731177
                July 2012
                July 2012
                : 50
                : 1
                : 108-122
                Article
                10.1016/j.asr.2012.03.003
                f13ea337-2213-4900-aa3c-4ec2496b1807
                © 2012

                http://www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/

                History

                Comments

                Comment on this article