Understanding soil evolution across time and landscapes
What dictates soil formation and survival on landscapes?
One aspect of my Ph.D. research has been investigating the mechanisms that dictate soil formation, and soil survival at the Earth's surface. To date, we still lack an adequate understanding of the mechanisms that control why certain soils survive for millions of years and why some soils are removed after only a few thousands of years on the landscape. By better understanding these mechanisms, we can better understand how the modern soil-landscape evolved to its current state.
What factors control soil property change with time?
Another goal of my dissertation work is focused on understanding which environmental factors control soil property change with time. As soil properties change with time do the environmental factors that influence soil properties change as well? By investigating which environmental factors strongly control soil properties at specific ages we can begin to better understand why particular soil evolutionary patterns are consistently observed across differing landscapes, ecosystems, and climates.
How can we model soil evolutionary processes?
An approach has yet to be developed that can account for all the variability we observe in soil evolution. One goal of my dissertation research is focused on developing modeling approaches that are broadly applicable, and still capable of adequately accounting for all the variability we see in soil evolution. With better models of soil formation, we can better understand how the Earth's surface evolved to the modern soil-landscape we observe now, and better understand how the Earth's surface will continue to change into the future.