Chloride as a signature indicator of soil textural and hydrologic stratigraphies in variable charge deep profiles

Abstract

Soil properties that influence water movement through profiles are important for determining flow paths, reactions between soil and solute, and the ultimate destination of solutes. This is particularly important in high rainfall environments. For highly weathered deep profiles, we hypothesize that abrupt changes in the distribution of the quotient [QT = (silt + sand)/clay] reflect the boundaries between textural units or textural (TS) and hydrologic (HS) stratigraphies. As a result, QT can be used as a parameter to characterize TS and as a surrogate for HS. Secondly, we propose that if chloride distributions were correlated with QT, under non-limiting anion exchange, then chloride distributions can be used as a signature indicator of TS and HS. Soil cores to a depth of 12·5 m were taken from 16 locations in the wet tropical Johnstone River catchment of northeast Queensland, Australia. The cores belong to nine variable charge soil types and were under sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum-S) production, which included the use of potassium chloride, for several decades. The cores were segmented at 1 m depth increments and subsamples were analysed for chloride, pH, soil water content (θ), clay, silt and sand contents. Selected bores were capped to serve as piezometers to monitor groundwater dynamics. Depth incremented QT, θ and chloride correlated, each individually, significantly with the corresponding profile depth increments, indicating the presence of textural, hydrologic and chloride gradients in profiles. However, rapid increases in QT down the profile indicated abrupt changes in TS, suggesting that QT can be used as a parameter to characterize TS and as a surrogate for HS. Abrupt changes in chloride distributions were similar to QT, suggesting that chloride distributions can be used as a signature indicator of QT (TS) and HS. Groundwater data indicated that chloride distributions depended, at least partially, on groundwater dynamics, providing further support to our hypothesis that chloride distribution can be used as a signature indicator of HS.