10Be, 14C Distribution, and Soil Production Rate in a Soil Profile of a Grassland Slope at Heshan Hilly Land, Guangdong

Abstract

Concentrations of organic carbon, carbon isotopes (13C and 14C), atmospheric 10Be in soil, and in situ 10Be in bedrock and weathering rock were determined in a study of a profile of a grassland slope at the Heshan Hilly Land Interdisciplinary Experimental Station, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Guangdong Province, China. A good linear relationship between depth and the 14C apparent age of the organic carbon demonstrates that the rock weathering process and the accumulation process of organic matter in the slope are relatively stable. Both 14C and 10Be results show that about 34% of soil in the grassland slope has been eroded during the past 3800 yr. The 10Be results for interstitial soil from weathered rocks show that the 90-cm-thick weathering rock layer above the bedrock has evolved over a period of 1.36 Myr. The concentrations of in situ 10Be in the weathered rock and bedrock are 10.7 X 10^4 atoms/g and 8.31 X 10^-4 atoms/g, respectively. The weathering rate of the bedrock, equivalent to the soil production rate, was estimated at 8.8 X 10^-4 cm/yr, and the exposure ages of the weathered rock and the bedrock were 72 kyr and 230 kyr, respectively.