Sorption behaviour of beryllium-7 and implications for its use as a sediment tracer

Taylor, Alex; Blake, William H.; Couldrick, Laurence; Keith-Roach, Miranda J.

doi:10.1016/j.geoderma.2012.04.013

Cited by 56 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…We propose this occurs because FRNs within channel intercepted precipitation and throughfall tag sediments within the channel environment such as suspended material, fine‐grained channel margin deposits (Skalak & Pizzuto, ), accreting floodplains, and coarser point bars. 7 Be and 210 Pb bind quickly and strongly to soil and sediment grain surfaces (e.g., Taylor et al, ; You, ). During rainfall events that occur at times of relatively low flow (e.g., summer thunderstorms), fluvial deposits can be above water level at onset of rain where they come into contact with fallout nuclides.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Their different half‐lives (53.3 days for 7 Be and 22.2 years for 210 Pb) allow the ratio of these radionuclides to be used as means to smooth some of the temporal and spatial variability of their deposition as well as account for differences in sediment grain size and properties (Matisoff et al, ). Furthermore, both FRNs have a high affinity for sorption onto particle surfaces with published partition coefficients (K d values) ranging from ~ 10 3 to 10 5 for 7 Be associated with natural and fluvial sediments (Taylor et al, ; You, ) and ~10 5 –10 6 for 210 Pb on lake sediments (Van Hoof & Andren, ). We point readers to reviews for full discussion of the production, deposition, and environmental applications of radionuclides: 7 Be (Kaste et al, ; Kaste & Baskaran, ; Walling, ) and 210 Pb (Baskaran, ; Mabit et al, ; Matisoff, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Direct Channel Precipitation and Storm Characteristics Influence Short‐Term Fallout Radionuclide Assessment of Sediment Source

Karwan

Pizzuto

Aalto

et al. 2018

Water Resources Research

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Fallout radionuclides (FRNs) and their ratios, such as Beryllium‐7 (7Be) and excess Lead‐210 (210Pbxs), have been used to determine suspended sediment source and age in catchments. These models are based on numerous assumptions, for example, that channel deposition of FRNs from precipitation is negligible in comparison to their delivery to the channel from land surface erosion during individual storm events. We test this assumption using a mass balance approach during eight storms from summer 2011 to fall 2012 in a mid‐Atlantic United States piedmont region watershed with mixed land use. Event peak discharge and storm type corresponded to the importance of direct channel FRN deposition from precipitation. During relatively low discharge summer thunderstorms, with minimal overland flow, less than 1% of 7Be and 210Pbxs flux deposited on the watershed exits the watershed associated with suspended sediment. The majority but not all deposited on the stream channel exits the watershed associated with suspended sediment (60% of 7Be and 80% of 210Pbxs). Here precipitation and throughfall onto the wetted channel area can be responsible for any FRN newly associated with suspended sediment, as opposed to landscape surface erosion. Furthermore, FRNs can be stored with sediments in the channel between events. Events with higher discharges, including hurricanes, show the opposite pattern—FRN flux associated with suspended sediment exported from the reach is greater than channel FRN wet deposition, suggesting net erosion from the watershed landscape and/or stored material during these types of storms.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Direct Channel Precipitation and Storm Characteristics Influence Short‐Term Fallout Radionuclide Assessment of Sediment Source

Karwan

Pizzuto

Aalto

et al. 2018

Water Resources Research

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“…Be) reac are equal, as long as changes in Q are sufficiently slow to allow for equilibration between Be diss and Be reac . Equilibration times between dissolved and adsorbed Be have been determined to be about a day for the easily exchangeable sites (You et al, 1989), and 10-20 days for the less accessible sites (You et al, 1989;Aldahan et al, 1999;Taylor et al, 2012). This equilibration time is fast and ensures that in most soils, except those that are strongly and temporarily undersaturated in Be diss by rapid rainwater infiltration events, ( Be) diss are established.…”

Section: Assumptions and Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Earth surface erosion and weathering from the 10Be (meteoric)/9Be ratio

Blanckenburg

Bouchez

Wittmann

2012

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

102

142

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: Earth surface erosion and weathering from the 10Be (meteoric)/9Be ratio. v351-352, pp 295-305 2012, doi j/epsl.2012.07.022 AbstractThe isotope ratio of the meteoric cosmogenic nuclide 10 Be to the mineral-derived stable isotope 9 Be discloses both the Earth surfaces' denudation rate and its weathering intensity. We develop a set of steady state mass balance equations that describes this system from a soil column over the hillslope scale to an entire river basin. The prerequisites making this new approach possible are: 1) the 9 Be concentration of parent rock (typically 2.5 ± 0.5 ppm in granitic and clastic sedimentary lithologies) is known; 2) both Be isotopes equilibrate between the fluids decomposing rock and reactive solids formed during weathering; and 3) a critical spatial scale is exceeded at which the fluxes of both isotopes into and out of the weathering zone are at steady state over the time scale of weathering (typically ~10 kyr). For these cases the isotope ratios can be determined in bulk sediment or soil, on leachates from the reactive (adsorbed and pedogenic mineral-bound) phase in sediment or soil, and even on the dissolved phase in river water. The 10 Be/ 9Be ratio offers substantial advantages over the single-isotope system of meteoric 10 Be. The latter system allows to directly determine erosion rates only in the case that 10 Be is fully retentive in the weathering zone and that riverine sorting has not introduced grain size-dependent 10 Be concentration gradients in sediments. We show the feasibility of the 10 Be/ 9 Be tracer approach at the river scale for sediment and water samples in the Amazon basin, where independent estimates of denudation rates from in situ-produced 10 Be exist. We furthermore calculate meaningful denudation rates from a set of published 10 Be/ 9 Be ratios measured in the dissolved load of globally distributed rivers. We conclude that this isotope ratio can be used to reconstruct global paleodenudation from sedimentary records.

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“…Wet‐deposited 7 Be readily sorbs to soil mineral grains and organic material (You, ; Taylor et al ., ), leading to the interest in this isotope as a fingerprint or tracer of surface erosion. Differences in 7 Be deposition to the soil surface have been attributed to the spatial variability of vegetation interception in grasslands (Kaste et al ., ) and tree plantations (Ali et al ., ), but much more research is necessary to determine watershed and landscape‐scale relationships.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beryllium-7 wet deposition variation with storm height, synoptic classification, and tree canopy state in the mid-Atlantic USA

et al. 2015

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Short-lived fallout isotopes, such as beryllium-7 ( 7 Be), are increasingly used as erosion and sediment tracers in watersheds. Beryllium-7 is produced in the atmosphere and delivered to Earth's surface primarily in precipitation. However, relatively little has been published about the variation in 7 Be wet deposition caused by storm type and vegetation cover. Our analysis of precipitation, throughfall, and sediments in two forested, headwater catchments in the midAtlantic USA indicates significant variation in isotope deposition with storm type and storm height. Individual summer convective thunderstorms were associated with 7 Be activity concentrations up to 5.0 Bq L -1 in precipitation and 4.7 Bq L -1 in throughfall while singleevent wet depositional fluxes reached 168 Bq m -2 in precipitation and 103 Bq m -2 in throughfall. Storms originating from the continental USA were associated with lower 7 Be activity concentrations and single-event wet depositional fluxes for precipitation (0.7 -1.2 Bq L -1 and 15.8 -65.0 Bq m -2 ) and throughfall (0.1 -0.3 Bq L -1 and 13.5 -98.9 Bq m -2 ). Tropical systems had relatively low activity concentrations, 0.2 -0.5 Bq L -1 in precipitation and 0.2 -1.0 Bq L -1 in throughfall, but relatively high single-event depositional fluxes due to large rainfall volumes, 32.8 -67.6 Bq m -2 in precipitation and 25.7 -134 Bq m -2 in throughfall. The largest sources of 7 Be depositional variation were attributed to storm characteristics including precipitation amount and maximum storm height. 7 Be activity associated with fluvial suspended sediments also exhibited the highest concentration and variability in summer (175 -1450 Bq kg -1 ). We conclude the dominant source of variation on event-level 7 Be deposition is storm type. Our results illustrate the complex relationships between 7 Be deposition in precipitation and throughfall and demonstrate event-scale relationships between the 7 Be in precipitation and on suspended sediment.

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Sorption behaviour of beryllium-7 and implications for its use as a sediment tracer

Cited by 56 publications

References 44 publications

Direct Channel Precipitation and Storm Characteristics Influence Short‐Term Fallout Radionuclide Assessment of Sediment Source

Direct Channel Precipitation and Storm Characteristics Influence Short‐Term Fallout Radionuclide Assessment of Sediment Source

Earth surface erosion and weathering from the 10Be (meteoric)/9Be ratio

Beryllium-7 wet deposition variation with storm height, synoptic classification, and tree canopy state in the mid-Atlantic USA

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