Measuring weathering rates, CO2 removal and storage
Through our three field sites, we’ll be taking a range of various samples from the soils, plants, water systems and air, at different intervals, to analyse how greenhouse gases are being absorbed from the atmosphere into the crushed rock.
Here are some of the ways we’ll be analysing the greenhouse gas removal rates at our field sites:
- on bulk soils, for different types of organic and inorganic carbon
- on crops and grains, for carbon content and cations
- different soil fractions, such as the parts that exchange (?) and the part that will react in a chemical process to form carbonates
- waters from drainage and soil pores, to measure alkalinity and pH, cations, metals, anions and nutrients
- precipitation (rainwater), to see how alkalinity, pH, cations and anions are affected
We’ll be quantifying field weathering rates, which means measuring how quickly and effectively the chemical processes are happening.
We’ll also be looking at greenhouse gas removal quantities by measuring alkalinity production from drainage waters and soil pore waters, and investigating how much of this is due to the crushed basalt, and how much might be happening naturally.
Finally, we’ll also be researching the security of how the carbon dioxide is stored in carbonate mineral formation downstream from our field sites, and how the current chemical makeup of those groundwaters and rivers might affect long-term storage of the CO2.