Comment on: “A reservoir of nitrate beneath desert soils”

JACKSON, RB; BERTHRONG, ST; COOK, CW; JOBBAGY, EG; MCCULLEY, RL

SCIENCE

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Lugar: Washington DC; Año: 2004 vol. 304 p. 51 - 51

0036-8075

Walvoord et al. (1) reported a large nitrate pool located deep (
1 m) beneath desert soils.Two aspects of this work were particularly surprising: the large pool size, estimated to beup to 104 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare, as nitrate (kg N ha–1); and the shape of thenitrate profiles, which resembled the conservative solute-accumulation profiles of Cl– morethan typical nutrient depletion profiles.............