HR: 15:00h
AN: NS43A-04    [Abstracts]
TI: Long term monitoring of biogenic gasses in peat soils using electromagnetic (EM) measurements
AU: * Comas, X
EM: xcomas@pegasus.rutgers.edu
AF: Department of Earth Sciences University of Maine, Bryand Global Sciences Center, Orono, ME 04469, United States
AU: Slater, L
EM: lslater@andromeda.rutgers.edu
AF: Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University, 101 Warren sreet, Smith Hall, room 137, Newark, NJ 07102, United States
AU: Reeve, A
EM: asreeve@maine.edu
AF: Department of Earth Sciences University of Maine, Bryand Global Sciences Center, Orono, ME 04469, United States
AB: Peatlands are a critical component of the global carbon cycle and play a major role in atmospheric fluxes. Peat soils are considered one of the largest natural sources for greenhouse gas emissions (e.g. methane and carbon dioxide) to the atmosphere, but the mechanisms of formation and spatial distribution of these gasses within the soil matrix still remain uncertain. In this work we investigate the use of ground penetrating radar (GPR) as a geophysical tool to estimate the long term temporal evolution and spatial variability of biogenic gasses at the field scale. We performed high resolution EM measurements over a large section (4m x 4m x 6m) of a northern peatland (Caribou Bog, Maine) for almost an entire year. Methane emissions and surface peat deformation were concurrently monitored. All measurements were performed along a platform built to avoid disturbance of the peat surface and consistently revealed large shifts in gas content. Our results demonstrate that GPR measurements are a totally non-invasive way of investigating long term gas evolution without any disturbance to the natural gas regime (such as inserting monitoring probes), and provide unique information on the spatial distribution of biogenic gasses in peat soils. These findings also have implications for climate modeling efforts as related to biogenic gas emissions in peat soils and its impact on global warming.
DE: 0994 Instruments and techniques
DE: 1890 Wetlands (0497)
DE: 4806 Carbon cycling (0428)
SC: Near-Surface Geophysics [NS]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly