Dynamic Imaging for Understanding Soil Biogeochemistry.

Advances in the spatial resolution and elemental sensitivity of a variety of spectromicroscopic techniques  has lead to new and better conceptual models of many important soil biogeochemical processes.  As powerful as high resolution x-ray techniques like Scanning transmission X-ray microscopy are, they struggle to gather data on a single system over time without either altering the system or removing it from a realistic environment.   Understanding the dynamics, rate and direction of change, of a system is a powerful way to improve and challenge our current conceptual and numeric models. In other words,  sometimes there is more information in movies than in snap shots.  This presentation will discuss some current efforts to develop dynamic imaging approaches using short lived radio-isotope probes and minimally-destructive, yet high sensitivity vibrational spectroscopic techniques for understanding soil redox processes and their connection with organic matter cycling.