Electron Probe Microanalysis of Calcite Grains Containing Phosphorus in Soil

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Calcite, comprising both clastic sand‐sized grains and fossil foraminifera inherited from a marine Cretaceous (“Gault”) clay, has been isolated from a haplaquept (“gleyic brown calcareous earth”) in the United Kingdom and shown by wet chemical analysis to contain an average of 0.3% phosphorus. Electron probe microanalysis indicates that this phosphorus is uniformly distributed within the calcite rather than concentrated as discrete calcium phosphates, and it is concluded that it was biogenic/diagenic rather than pedogenic in origin. Such sources constitute 50–80% of the total soil phosphorus and would be relatively available in the upper horizons of the profile.

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit: