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Beryllium-7 as a natural tracer for short-term downwash in peat

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Abstract

Several factors can affect the integrity of natural archives such as peat records, e.g., decomposition and nutrient cycling, and it has also been hypothesized that some rapid downward transport of atmospherically derived elements may occur. We test this hypothesis by analyzing the short-lived, natural tracer beryllium-7 (t½ = 53.4 days) in five cores from two peatlands. In triplicate hummock cores from a raised bog in southern Sweden, 7Be could be measured to 20, 18 and 8 cm depth, and in a nutrient-poor mire in northern Sweden to a depth of 16 cm in a Sphagnum lawn core, but only 4 cm in the dominant, more-decomposed fen peat, indicating some spatial variability both within and between sites. Total 7Be inventories were 320–450 Bq m−2 in the bog, and 150 Bq m−2 (lawn) and 240 Bq m−2 (fen peat) in the mire. 25–79 % of the total inventory of 7Be was located in the upper 2-cm layer. To further test downwashing, in the laboratory we applied a CuBr-solution to two cores and a Cu-solution to one core taken from the mire Sphagnum lawn, all with low water table conditions. About 50 % of the added Cu and ~35 % of the added Br were retained in the surface (2 cm) layer; 1–3 % of the Cu was found at 8–12 cm depth and ~1 % of the Br was measured in the lowest level (20–22 cm). Based on our novel approach using 7Be and experimental work we show that short-term downwashing can occur in peatlands and we suggest the depth of this will depend on the properties of the peat, e.g., bulk density and decomposition, as well as hydrology.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Johan Rydberg and Malin Kylander for help in the field, and the County Administrative Board of Jönköping for granting permission for fieldwork within Store mosse National Park. We are also grateful for the critical comments from the anonymous reviewers, who posed some challenging questions. This research was supported by grants from the Swedish Research Council, the Kempe Foundations, and particularly Stiftelsen Anna och Gunnar Vidfelts fond för biologisk forskning.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Umeå University, 901 87, Umeå, Sweden

    Sophia V. Hansson, Keyao Chen & Richard Bindler

  2. Geology Department, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, 23187, USA

    James M. Kaste

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  1. Sophia V. Hansson
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  2. James M. Kaste
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Correspondence to Sophia V. Hansson.

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Hansson, S.V., Kaste, J.M., Chen, K. et al. Beryllium-7 as a natural tracer for short-term downwash in peat. Biogeochemistry 119, 329–339 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-014-9969-y

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