Department of Earth System Science

Terrestrial Radiocarbon Database Workshop; Berkeley, California, 20–22 July 2011 Soils play a large role in the global carbon (C) cycle, but soil C stocks and dynamics remain highly uncertain. Radiocarbon (¹⁴C) observations provide critical information on the rates of exchange of soil C with the atmosphere and hydrosphere and how those rates vary with edaphic (soil-related) factors and over a range of time scales. For example, the degree to which radio decay has affected ¹⁴C demonstrates the importance of short-range-order minerals for stabilizing organic C on millennial time scales in some soils. Time series that track the infiltration of “bomb” ¹⁴C help identify the components of soil C that cycle on decadal to centennial time scales.