Soils as environmental fluorescence database to explain the speleothem fluorescence signal (original) (raw)

2014, EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts

In this study, we propose to use soils water-extracted organic matter (OM) as a database of fluorescence signal, to interpret quantitatively the the fluorescence of speleothems OM. Due to its efficiency to described dissolved organic matter (DOM) characteritics, fluorescence has been used to determined DOM signatures in natural systems, water circulations, OM transfer from soils, OM evolution in soils or recently, DOM changes in engineered treatment systems. Fluorescence has also been used in speleothems studies, mainly as a growth indicator. Only few studies interpret it as an environmental proxy. Speleothem fluorescence can be used as an environmental proxy, to record the past soil evolutions. Qualitative changes of OM are easily measured. However, it's today complicated to quantify the fluorescence signal of speleothems due to the analytical method generally used. That's why we propose to interpret quantitatively the fluorescence signal of speleothems, using soil fluorescence as a database of fluorescence signal.