EPSCoR soil monitoring network as classroom: preliminary data on the biogeochemistry of soils and streams

The sites of the cutting-edge soil sensor network in the Hungerford Brook and Wade Brook watersheds were used to teach an Environmental Geochemistry lab course with the dual goal to 1) enable students to complete a concise research project independently and 2) provide seed data for the overarching EPSCoR Basin Resilience to Extreme Events (BREE) effort. Overarching questions of the BREE soil monitoring network are related to the effectiveness of the riparian areas attenuating nutrients during extreme events. For the lab project students chose from a list of research questions that are related to the links between soils and streams. Students performed literature searches, developed hypotheses, collected samples in the field, collected data on various instruments, analyzed data, synthesized their findings to test specific hypothesis and contributed to the writing of this abstract. Fife separate projects were conducted where specific hypotheses on concentration and distribution of total nitrogen, dissolved organic carbon and metals (in soils and streams) as well as mineralogy (soil) were tested. Preliminary results indicate significant differences in carbon and nitrogen concentrations and carbon quality between forest and agricultural stream water. Water extractable soil carbon varied with soil wetness, landscape position (hillslope vs. riparian) and sites (forest vs. agricultural setting). Clay lenses in the agricultural wetland contain a large fraction of non-swelling clay (Illite) and show similarities to a locally sourced chlorite-bearing schist. The forested wetland did not exhibit such a clay layer, however, this wetland was tested for carbon and metal concentrations of inflow and effluent waters. Because all samples were taken during a major rainstorm (the first since weeks), these samples are considered event samples. For example, during this rain storm, dissolved carbon in the wetland effluent water was approximately 10 times higher than that of the inflow water.