Soils at the hyperarid margin: The isotopic composition of soil carbonate from the Atacama Desert, Northern Chile

We evaluate the impact of exceptionally sparse plant cover (0–20%) and rainfall (2–114 mm/yr) on the stable carbon and oxygen composition of soil carbonate along elevation transects in what is among the driest places on the planet, the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O values of carbonates from the Atacama are the highest of any desert in the world. δ¹³C (VPDB) values from soil carbonate range from -8.2% at the wettest sites to +7.9% at the driest. We measured plant composition and modeled respiration rates required to form these carbonate isotopic values using a modified version of the soil diffusion model of [Cerling (1984) Earth Planet. Sci. Lett.71, 229–240], in which we assumed an exponential form of the soil CO₂ production function, and relatively shallow (20–30 cm) average production depths. Overall, we find that respiration rates are the main predictor of the δ¹³C value of soil carbonate in the Atacama, whereas the fraction C₃ to C₄ biomass at individual sites has a subordinate influence. The high average δ¹³C value (+4.1%) of carbonate from the driest study sites indicates it formed-perhaps abiotically—in the presence of pure atmospheric CO₂. δ¹⁸O (VPDB) values from soil carbonate range from -5.9% at the wettest sites to +7.3% at the driest and show much less regular variation with elevation change than δ¹³C values. δ¹⁸O values for soil carbonate predicted from local temperature and δ¹⁸O values of rainfall values suggest that extreme (>80% in some cases) soil dewatering by evaporation occurs at most sites prior to carbonate formation. The effects of evaporation compromise the use of δ¹⁸O values from ancient soil carbonate to reconstruct paleoelevation in such arid settings.