Constraining the Effect of Climate and Rock Porosity on Weathering Extent in the Volcanic Island of Santa Cruz (Galápagos, Ecuador)

Abstract

Volcanic soils are among the most productive soils in the world as they can accumulate large amounts of organic carbon and nitrogen and have good water storage capacity. They are extensively used worldwide for agriculture, which makes it difficult to study the soil-landscape dynamics under natural conditions. By working in the Galápagos Islands, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, we aimed to constrain soil development over millennial timescales using empirical data. Our monitoring sites on Santa Cruz Island cover a 10 km long NW-SE transect with an 8-fold increase in precipitation and associated vegetation changes. By controlling for age and chemical composition of the basaltic parent material, we investigated the influence of precipitation rates on soil weathering. At the landscape scale, soil weathering degree increased with increasing precipitation, as shown by the spatial patterns in soil depth, pH, mass loss coefficients, chemical index of alteration, chemical depletion fraction, and total reserve in bases. In addition to the climatic effect, rock porosity strongly enhanced basalt weathering. Porosity-enhanced weathering is particularly important in the humid and perhumid precipitation regimes: soils developed on porous scoriae developed weathering mantles that are ∼10-fold thicker and have 10-fold higher mass losses due to weathering compared to soils developed on basalt lava flows. Our results demonstrated that variations in rock pore dimensions and distribution can lead to large variations in basalt weathering rates, particularly in humid and perhumid climates where deep leaching can be facilitated by rock porosity.