Weathering is a complex process comprising physical disaggregation, chemical and biological decomposition of rocks and minerals transforming complex structure minerals in simpler ones. Hydrolysis of silicates is perhaps the most important process but associated certainly to biological weathering. It is discussed the role ofwaters: activities/concentrations of chemical species, pH, Eh, importanc...

Biotite is a common constituent of silicate bedrock. Its weathering releases plant nutrients and consumes atmospheric CO2. Because of its stoichiometric relationship with its transformational weathering product and sensitivity to botanical activity, calculating biotite weathering rates using watershed mass-balance methods has proven challenging. At Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory the coupling of ...

Chemical weathering and the ensuing atmospheric carbon dioxide consumption has long been considered to work on geological time periods until recently when some modelling and natural records have shown that the weathering-related CO2 consumption can change at century to glacial-interglacial time scale. Last glacial to interglacial transition period is a best test case to understand the interplay...

The Yarlung Tsangpo–Brahmaputra river drains a large portion of the Himalaya and southern Tibetan plateau, including the eastern Himalayan syntaxis, one of the most tectonically active regions on the globe. We measured the solute chemistry of 161 streams and major tributaries of the Tsangpo–Brahmaputra to examine the effect of tectonic, climatic, and geologic factors on chemical weathering rate...

We present an image-editing technique that can synthesize weathering effects with fine-scale geometric variations that occur together with weathering phenomena. We extract such fine-scale geometries as high-frequency components of the image semi-automatically according to the estimated weathering distribution in the image. The geometric details are modified when (de)-weathering is applied, yiel...

To model surface imperfections and weathering, we propose a two-step texture generation framework in between manual texture synthesis and automatic physical simulation. Although the pattern of blemishes looks random, the systematic and geometry dependent nature of the underlying distribution is still observable. A distribution of tendency (potential to contain blemishes) is modeled in the first...

Weathering modeling introduces blemishes such as dirt, rust, cracks and scratches to virtual scenery. In this paper we present a visual simulation technique that works well for a wide variety of weathering phenomena. Our technique, called γ-ton tracing, is based on a type of aging-inducing particles called γ-tons. Modeling a weathering effect with γ-ton tracing involves tracing a large number o...

Physicochemical analysis in the microscopic sense is a critical assessment of monitoring the polymeric materials under a weathering test, and it links the accelerated laboratory test with the outdoor performance results for a long-term durability. Here, by taking an experimented example for vinyl siding after an outdoor weathering test in Okinawa, Japan for 17 years and a QUV accelerated weathe...

The rare earth elements (REE) are increasingly important in a variety of science and economic fields, including (bio)geosciences, paleoecology, astrobiology, and mining. However, REE distribution in early rock-microbe-plant systems has remained elusive. We tested the hypothesis that REE mass-partitioning during incipient weathering of basalt, rhyolite, granite and schist depends on the activity...

Mineral carbonation of basic silicate minerals regulates atmospheric CO(2) on geological time scales by locking up carbon. Mining and spreading onto the earth's surface of fast-weathering silicates, such as olivine, has been proposed to speed up this natural CO(2) sequestration ('enhanced weathering'). While agriculture may offer an existing infrastructure, weathering rate and impacts on soil a...