Demystifying Science — April 08, 2018

Conventional wisdom has always been that nitrogen, a gas essential to plant life on earth, was only available from the atmosphere. However, it emerges that nearly a quarter of it comes from the earth’s bedrock. This nitrogen (26%) in natural ecosystems is sourced from rocks and is referred to as ‘rock nitrogen’. Nitrogen-weathering is a globally significant source of nutrition to soils and ecosystems worldwide and may be playing a role in allowing forests and grasslands to sequester more fossil fuel CO2 emissions than previously thought. But not just any rock can leach nitrogen. Rock nitrogen availability is determined by weathering, which can be physical (such as through tectonic movement), or chemical (such as when minerals react with rainwater). The study has been published in the journal Science. — Science Daily