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Title: Stable and radioactive carbon isotope partitioning in soils and saturated systems: a reactive transport modeling benchmark study

Journal Article · · Computational Geosciences
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [2];  [3]
  1. Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
  2. PSL Univ., Fontainebeau (France)
  3. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
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© 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. This benchmark provides the first rigorous test of a three-isotope system [12C, 13C, and 14C] subject to the combined effects of radioactive decay and both stable equilibrium and kinetic fractionation. We present a series of problems building in complexity based on the cycling of carbon in both organic and inorganic forms. The key components implement (1) equilibrium fractionation between multiple coexisting carbon species as a function of pH, (2) radioactive decay of radiocarbon with associated mass-dependent speciation demonstrating appropriate correction of the Δ14C value in agreement with reporting convention, and (3) kinetic stable isotope fractionation due to the oxidation of organic carbon to inorganic forms as a function of time and space in an open, through-flowing system. Participating RTM codes are CrunchTope, ToughReact, Hytec, and The Geochemist’s Workbench. Across all problem levels, simulation results from all RTMs demonstrate good agreement.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0019198; AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1603096
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1631620
Journal Information:
Computational Geosciences, Vol. 25, Issue 4; ISSN 1420-0597
Publisher:
SpringerCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 7 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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