Controlling Carbon Transformations in Mineral Soils – Options and Obstacles.

An assessment of mineral-organic associations can not be accomplished without recalling accepted, traditional views of soil organic matter and considering the respective molecular models in the light of new evidence. Here I  summarise how mineral-organic associations have been conceptualised and investigated in the past. I will present arguments to support the inference that soil organic matter in its entirety can not be adequatelyy represented by any operational proxy and support a conceptual approach which treats soil organic matter as a dynamic pool of reduced carbon compounds that sits "atop a free energy precipice that drops of on all sides to dispersed, stable ingredients such as carbon dioxide, water, nitrate and phosphate" (Hedges et al., 2000). The extent to which organic matter becomes oxidised and thus functionalised during this process is seen as the major determinant of yet to be developed strategies to manage carbon fluxes through soils.