Organic carbon in the top metre of Earth’s soils is far older than previously thought, averaging 4,800 years old. These radiocarbon-derived age estimates require us to recalibrate our expectations of ecosystem gains and losses of carbon.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Trumbore, S. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 37, 47–66 (2009).
Shi, Z. et al. Nat. Geosci. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-020-0596-z (2020).
Lawrence, C. R. et al. Earth Syst. Sci. Data 12, 61–76 (2020).
He, Y. et al. Science 353, 1419–1424 (2016).
Giardina, C. P., Litton, C. M., Crow, S. E. & Asner, G. P. Nat. Clim. Change 4, 822–827 (2014).
Ziegler, S. E. et al. Front. Earth Sci. 5, 2 (2017).
Kramer, M. G. & Chadwick, O. A. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 1104–1108 (2018).
Richter, D. deB. & Billings, S. A. New Phytol. 206, 900–912 (2015).
Calabrese, S., Richter, D. D. & Porporato, A. Geophys. Res. Lett. 45, 7588–7595 (2018).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Billings, S.A., de Souza, L.F.T. Earth’s soil harbours ancient carbon. Nat. Geosci. 13, 527–528 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-020-0614-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-020-0614-1