User:TriciaAwald/sandbox

Article Evaluation

Hydrogen Cycle

Content Notes

The first sentence is very confusing in the wording with the compounded and's. "The hydrogen cycle consists of hydrogen exchanges between biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) sources and sinks of hydrogen-containing compounds." My recommendation is to reword it to " The hydrogen cycle consists of hydrogen exchanges between biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) factors as either a source or sink of hydrogen-containing compounds." I also would change the link for biotic from the life wiki page to biotic components page to match with the abiotic linking to abiotic components and for this purpose it's more relevant to know some of the components versus the broad definition.

Rock-water interaction is a very broad term. It will help readers (especially readers new to the concept) more if there was a link to another page discussing what exactly it means for rock-water interaction or if they had a section discussing the process and how it relates later on in the article.

For users that are just getting into elemental cycles they may not no some terms, There should be a link for serpenization so users can understand what that process is. It important to link it since it is used multiple times throughout the article.

I think its cool that they included its relevance to astrobiology. For future development I would say relating it other fields like environmental science. This will help people understand the significance of the cycle and where it can be applied to.

The last thing is adding pictures. Having visual helps people who learn visually. Ideally an overview of the cycle and potentially detailed ones for abiotic and biotic processes.

Tone Notes

The tone was neutral throughout the article. You can tell that an editor was experienced in astrobiology because there is a section on the subject but there were not any other section on specific fields. The connection to global climate remained neutral by simply keeping to the chemical reactions and careful choice of words. Overall the only improvement to tone would including other fields in which the the hydrogen cycle is relevant.

Source Notes

Looking at the source list there are alot of specific articles. You can almost read the title and know exactly where they were used without referencing the article. I would like to see more sources on the hydrogen cycle itself. The sources used seemed to be the example and hydrogen is a secondary factor. For example the first 3 sources listed have nothing in the title to insite that there will be a discussion of hydrogen. Looking at the references each one was only used once or twice. Finding articles that are more inclusive to the hydrogen cycle would allow for a source to be used more than once. It seems that the bulk of the general material was not cited but specific example were cited instead.

Oxygen Cycle

Content Notes

The introduction is a great start to the article. There is a bombardment of vocabulary words but the linking in the beginning does a great job of defining and informing the words. To help with organization and fluidity of the article, by removing spheres for sphere/reservoirs would cause less confusion. Since later on in the article it referenced solely as a reservoirs.

In the reservoir the introduction is great. Under the atmosphere section there needs to be clarification on the the percentage when it says 20.9% oxygen is it talking about total oxygen in the atmosphere or just O₂ molecules. This can be said for all the sphere sections, the reservoir section as a whole throws a lot percents at you and so being detailed in what each percentage means will go a long way in helping readers understand the distribution of oxygen between the various reservoirs.

For the source and sink part of the article I would reword Biological Consumption. The wording makes its seem that the decay in oxygen is chemical. Changing it to decomposition would be more clear for readers who are looking for a quick skim.

There should be a better connection of ozone to this page. Yes there is a complete separate article on the topic but there could be a better job stating that apart of the oxygen cycle and replenishing the the layer. The section seems out of place without a brief description of how the ozone layer factors into the oxygen cycle

Tone Notes

The tone of the article was from a neutral standpoint. It did a really good job of presenting basic information and quick numbers that are relevant to the article without going into the nitty gritty of it. Overall this article serves the purpose of a review of the oxygen cycle

Source Notes

Citation are needed for biosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere percentage. The way its written it seems as though those numbers appeared out of thin air. In the source list there are multiple sources that were directly about the oxygen cycle with more specific sources for the subsection details.

Silica Cycle

Content Notes

There should be a link to silicifiers to help someone who is not familiar with what it is or examples of it. It would help break down that paragraphs with a lot of chemistry heavy vocabulary allowing for readers to better follow along. Also linking silicic acids when it first mentioned will keep the reader more engaged. When its first mentioned is ideal linking because its stating that "...it makes silicic acid" that's when the reader would ask what is silicic acid.

There should be an emphasis on two types of weathering physical and chemical. The way its written implies that chemical weathering is the only way to get silica. If is the case then is should specify chemical weathering to help remove assumptions and confusion on the information.

The last major thing is in the sink section, the opening two sentences are repetitive. They can be combined to reduces the repetitive nature of the opening sentences.

Tone Notes

The tone for the most part is neutral. There can be some changes in the wording for the section pertaining to climate change/ regulation. The word regulation is a little tense and can be reworded to matian a more neutral standpoint. Rewording the section to be along the lines Effects on the Carbon Cycle would provide a much less controversial section header. It also sticks to the information that is presented without implying anything else.

Source Notes

There are some parts that sources should be added but overall the in text citations are not in bad shape. The article has plenty of sources that are reviews of the silica cycle, which help maintain a neutral stance. There is a well balance of overviews to specific articles that contain the information on examples. Overall the sources used are well balanced between the two types of articles.

Draft of Contributions

Plants look like when missing essential nutrient. N, P, K being the major elements needed

Agrominerals are minerals of importance to agriculture and horticulture industries for they can provide essential plant nutrients. Agrominerals has also been called stone bread and petrol fertilizer. Some agrominerals occur naturally or can be processed to be used as alternative fertilizers or soil amendments. The term agromineral was created in the 19th century, and is now one of the leading research topics for sustainable agriculture. These geomaterials are used to replenished the nutrients and amend soils. Agrominerals started out with small uses most often seen in hobbiest gardening, but is moving to a much larger scale such as commercial farming operations that take up 100's of acres of land. In this transition the focus changed to be more on ground nutrients, mainly on the three major plant nutrients Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K). Two of the three elements are only being harvested from a geomaterial called potash. Alternative sources are being researched, due to potash finite supply and cost. The process of using agrominerals starts with crushing rocks into a "rock powder," than using the powder to replenish soil nutrients. The process of replenishing mineral levels in a soil is called soil remineralization. While studying alternative ways to replenish ground nutrients, it has been found that agrominerals can also help mitigate other issues such climate change, water preservation and soil management.

History

Change in Potash prices between 1880 and 2015

The study of agrominerals is termed agrogeology, and agrogeologists are concerned with issues such as the replenishment of soil fertility in areas where agrominerals have been depleted by unsustainable farming methods. With current farming practice, the system is expected to have high crop production with low soil quality. Over time with this type of practices, ground nutrients has been depleted which has lead to an increase in chemical fertilizer usage. The chemical fertilizers have shown to have runoff and it can contaminate ground waters and are not economically feasible for third world countries. One of the major sources for chemical fertilizers is potash ore, in the late 2000's in the span of two years the cost of potash fertilizer increase by a factor of 4. The other concern with the potash ore is the supply is finite and is running out, hince the increase in pricing. Potash is one of the major sources for potassium and phosphorus and one of the original agrominerals. Finding alternative sources for these agrominerals was a concept that was created to focus on soil remediation, in order to increase productivity in a low cost manner. At first agrominerals were used to help recreate soil conditions for exotic plants. These were simple practices that occur on a much smaller scale. These include using perlite to enhance the aeration of soil, using pumice to control evaporation while one can use vermiculites and zeolites to store moisture. This soil modification was the start of the agromineral concept and has evolved into looking for alternative source to obtain the three major nutrient elements. Remineralization has been the term created for implementing rock powders into soils as a source of nutrients. This process has been implemented into bigger operations and has found great success in places like Brazil, Germany, Norway, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Uganda.

Sources

The original agromineral is potash, it is how chemical fertilizers get it potassium and phosphorus nutrients in the present day. Due to such a high demand, the ore is running in low supply which has increased its market value. The biggest limiting factor is potassium, despite being the fourth most abundant element in the earth's crust it has only one major source that being potash. One of the popular alternative ideas to get away from the use of chemical fertilizer is spreading rock powders in the field as a source of nutrients. One of the major research areas involve looking feldspars and feldspathoids and determining which would more efficient to use. In one of the studies it showed that the feldspathoid nepheline had a much higher dissolution rate making it more efficient source of potassium than other rocks that are much more potassium rich like granitic rocks. There is a push to move away from chemical fertilizers since it has been connected to ground water pollution. There has been a shift into looking at grinding rocks into a powder that can be incorporated into the ground as a new way to add nutrients in the soil. The idea behind rock powder originated from the idea that rock weather and that is how nutrients was originally put in the soil; soil is weathered rock. With this concept its been determined that the rock source is very important because the rock can have unwanted elements that can be toxic for both the plant and the humans ingesting it. Research has been done on rocks such as basaltic, dacite, volcanic rock, and more, each rock had their pros and cons. The success of the rock powder can be affected by crop cycle. For example, basaltic was effective when it came to long cycle crops, but short cycle crops it was not as effective as chemical fertilizers. With some rock powders it can take anywhere between 1-5 years to show results. The biggest contributions to a rock being an effective rock powder comes down to mineralogy and chemical composition. Once rock sources that have the proper elements and effectiveness is found, the limitation to rock powders then becomes the means in which it is grinded. Grinding a rock like olivine to a particle size that would be effective in the ground (1μm), takes about 1.5 gigajoule per ton of rock. Research will be needed to find more efficient ways to crush rock for rock-powders to be a sustainable solution for replenishing plant nutrients.

Remineralization

Tilling is one of the processes used to incorporate rock powder into the soil

Agrominerals allow for nutrients to be added to the soil after a long history of crops depleting it . The agriculture industry is suffering from its high loss rate in arable layers in the soil and ground nutrients compared to the natural replenishment rate. Remineralization looks into the process of taking rock powders and incorporating it into the soil as a way to replenish the nutrients in the ground. With rock powder the plant absorbs only what it needs, and any unused minerals will remain crystalized until it is used. While chemical fertilizers use dissolvable salts to deliver the nutrients to the plant, whatever is not absorb will run off into the nearest groundwater. Rocks have become a cheap by-product in many industries and so there is a potential for a massive supply of viables rocks for a cheap price. Remineralization using rock powder can provide up to 5 years’ worth of nutrients in a soil. When used in the combination with organic fertilizer, rock powder has proven to be just as effective as chemical fertilizer for a much smaller cost. It has even shown to have higher yields for long term crops. When using rock powder, the plants tended to look healthier, and it was found that the powder helps with holding moisture content. The effectiveness of the remineralization process is dependent on the mineralogy and chemistry of the rock powder, as well as the soil characteristics. The challenge with rock powders is understanding the solubility rates of the rock powder. Rates are dependent on factors like organic matter, pH levels, secondary clay precipitation. This is a major area of research since their dissolution kinetics are not fully understood . One of the major challenges is recreating the field conditions in the lab, in many cases the solubility rates in the lab are 2-5 magnitudes higher than the ones in the field . It's important to fully understand what the mineralogy and chemical components of a rock. Volcanic rocks were thought to be a good source for rock powder but it was determined that it contains toxic elements as well. Research has been done into phosphate rocks, but these too have the issue of containing heavy and radioactive elements . The use of rock powder in remineralization has the potential to help mitigate global warming. When nutrients from certain powders are absorbed, cations are released in the soil which react to with carbon dioxide to create carbonate minerals, which can serve as a carbon sink for the carbon cycle. With this discovery there has been a push to further look into remineralizations using rocks powders due to its sustainability potential both from a farming side and a global climate change side.

See also

• Biogeochemistry
• Dietary mineral
• Edaphology
• Essential nutrient
• Micronutrients
• Soil chemistry
• Sustainable agriculture