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Stable and radioactive carbon isotope partitioning in soils and saturated systems: a reactive transport modeling benchmark study

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Abstract

This benchmark provides the first rigorous test of a three-isotope system [12C, 13C, and 14C] subject to the combined effects of radioactive decay and both stable equilibrium and kinetic fractionation. We present a series of problems building in complexity based on the cycling of carbon in both organic and inorganic forms. The key components implement (1) equilibrium fractionation between multiple coexisting carbon species as a function of pH, (2) radioactive decay of radiocarbon with associated mass-dependent speciation demonstrating appropriate correction of the Δ14C value in agreement with reporting convention, and (3) kinetic stable isotope fractionation due to the oxidation of organic carbon to inorganic forms as a function of time and space in an open, through-flowing system. Participating RTM codes are CrunchTope, ToughReact, Hytec, and The Geochemist’s Workbench. Across all problem levels, simulation results from all RTMs demonstrate good agreement.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their comments, which greatly improved the manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by the US Department of Energy, Subsurface Biogeochemical Research Award no. DE-SC0019198 to PI-Druhan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA

    Jennifer L. Druhan

  2. MINES ParisTech, PSL University, Centre de Géosciences, 77300, Fontainebleau, France

    Sophie Guillon & Manon Lincker

  3. Energy Geosciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Bhavna Arora

Authors
  1. Jennifer L. Druhan
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  2. Sophie Guillon
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  3. Manon Lincker
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  4. Bhavna Arora
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jennifer L. Druhan.

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Highlights

• We present a set of reactive transport benchmark problems to validate accurate simulation of both stable and radioactive carbon in batch and 1D flow-through domains.

• The set builds in hierarchy and includes equilibrium and kinetic stable isotope fractionation, radioactive decay, microbial oxidation, and artificially amended substrates.

• The present paper reports validation of RTM software packages CrunchTope, ToughReact, The Geochemists Workbench, and Hytec for this benchmark.

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Druhan, J.L., Guillon, S., Lincker, M. et al. Stable and radioactive carbon isotope partitioning in soils and saturated systems: a reactive transport modeling benchmark study. Comput Geosci 25, 1393–1403 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10596-020-09937-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10596-020-09937-6

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