The contribution of tephra constituents during biogenic silica determination: implications for soil and  palaeoecological studies

Clymans, W.; Barão, L.; Van der Putten, N.; Wastegård, S.; Gísladóttir, G.; Björck, S.; Moine, B.; Struyf, E.; Conley, D. J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-3789-2015

Articles | Volume 12, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-3789-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-3789-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 12, issue 12

Research article

|

22 Jun 2015

Research article |

| 22 Jun 2015

The contribution of tephra constituents during biogenic silica determination: implications for soil and palaeoecological studies

W. Clymans, L. Barão, N. Van der Putten, S. Wastegård, G. Gísladóttir, S. Björck, B. Moine, E. Struyf, and D. J. Conley

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Final revised paper (published on 22 Jun 2015)
Preprint (discussion started on 25 Feb 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC C516: 'Referee comments', David J Lowe, 05 Mar 2015
- AC C2340: 'Reply to both referees and the associate editor', W. Clymans, 21 May 2015
RC C690: 'A comment on The contribution of tephra to biogenic silica determination: Implications for soil and paleoecological studies', Anonymous Referee #2, 19 Mar 2015

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by W. Clymans on behalf of the Authors (21 May 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (23 May 2015) by Yakov Kuzyakov

AR by W. Clymans on behalf of the Authors (23 May 2015)

Short summary

Biogenic silica (BSi) is used as a proxy by soil scientists to identify biological effects on the Si cycle and by palaeoecologists to study environmental changes. We show the presence of tephra constituents can make measurements erroneous at low BSi concentrations, with repercussions for soil and palaeoecological studies. However, we also show that glass shards do not produce an identical dissolution signal to that of BSi, meaning they can be distinguished with appropriate experimental setups.