Abstract
This work presents the results of a soil erosion study using the 7Be technique. This technique estimates the water erosion/deposition from the comparison between 7Be soil content of a reference site and an eroded or sedimented site. The soil samples were collected from an agricultural area of the semiarid region of Argentina near San Luis City, which has a marked rainfall season. The area has been used for crop cultivation, being subjected to plowing practices. The 7Be in the Reference Site was in the first centimeter of soil, showing the typical exponential decreasing of 7Be soil content with depth, with the 7Be inventories value being 340 ± 50 Bq m−2 for the dry season and 571 ± 48 Bq m−2 for the rainy season. The 7Be technique was applied to a potential eroded site subjected to traditional tillage practices (plowing). A net soil erosion value of 13.5 t ha−1 (1.35 kg m−2) was obtained. From the assumptions of the applied technique, we can draw the inference that this erosion was caused by rains produced in the month prior to the date of soil sampling.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Argentine institutions: the Universidad Nacional de San Luis (UNSL), the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (UNSAM) and the Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica (CoNEA). The authors thank the comments provided by the anonymous referees and the editor that greatly enriched this work.
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This article is a part of Topical Collection in Environmental Earth Sciences on IV RAGSU—Advances in Geochemistry of the Surface in Argentina, edited by Dr. Americo Iadran Torres and Dr. Pablo Jose Bouza.
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de Rosas, J.P., Esquivel, A.D., Martinez Heimann, D. et al. Using beryllium-7 to evaluate soil erosion processes in agricultural lands in semiarid regions of Central Argentina. Environ Earth Sci 77, 587 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-018-7767-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-018-7767-x