Mineral weathering, in the rhizosphere

Banfield, J. F., Barker, W. W., Welch, S. A. Taunton, A. (1999). Biological impact on mineral dissolution application of the lichen model to understanding mineral weathering in the rhizosphere. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 96, 3404-11. 

Seguin, V., Courchesne, R, Gagnon, C., Martin, R.R., Naftel, S., Skinner, W., 2005. Mineral weathering in the rhizosphere of forested soils. In Huang, P.M., Gobran, G.R. (Eds.), Biogeochemistry of Trace Elements in the Rhizosphere. Elsevier, New York, pp. 29-55 (in this book). 

Consequently, the objective of this study is to establish the nature of the effect of roots on mineral weathering in the rhizosphere of forested soils based on differences in (1) the mineralogical composition and (2) the chemical forms of metals. 

The results taken as a whole converge and indicate a more intense mineral weathering in the rhizosphere compared to the bulk soil. The XRD results show a change in mineral assemblage that reflects increased mineral weathering in the rhizosphere, a reaction that mostly affects easily weathered minerals such as chlorite and amphiboles. A hypothesis submitted in the literature to explain the greater alteration in the rhizosphere links nutrient uptake by plants to a disequilibrium between the liquid and the solid phases that induces the release of interlayer elements such as K and Mg. However, the current study showed that K and Mg... 

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