Giving Compass' Take:

• As Futurity reports, a new study shows large quantities of carbon are held on by minerals in our soil. When it comes to our environmental sustainability, such info could lead to a breakthrough.  

• In what ways can this help drive innovation and investment in the agriculture sector? 

• Here's more on how soil can improve food security and fight climate change. 

“We’ve known for quite a long time that the carbon stored on minerals is the carbon that sticks around for a long time,” says Oliver Chadwick of the University of California, Santa Barbara. How much carbon the soil can take and how much it can keep depend on temperature, moisture, and other factors, he says.

“When plants photosynthesize, they draw carbon out of the atmosphere, then they die and their organic matter is incorporated in the soil,” Chadwick says. “Bacteria decompose that organic matter, releasing carbon that can either go right back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide or it can get held on the surface of soil minerals.”

Water plays a significant role in the soil’s ability to retain carbon, researchers say. Chadwick and Marc Kramer of Washington State University consulted the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) and a globally representative archived data for soil profiles for this first-ever global-scale evaluation of the role soil plays in producing dissolved organic matter and storing it on minerals.

Read the full article on the large amounts of carbon in soil by Sonia Fernandez at Futurity.