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Title: MEASUREMENT OF PERMITTIVITY OF MINERALS IN SOILS

Author
item LEBRON, INMA - UC RIVERSIDE, CA
item Robinson, David
item FRIEDMAN, SHMULIK - BET DAGAN, ISRAEL

Submitted to: Agronomy Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/5/2003
Publication Date: 11/5/2003
Citation: Lebron, I., Robinson, D.A., Friedman, S.P. 2003. Measurement of permittivity of minerals in soils. Soil Science Society of America. Paper No. S01-lebron745132-p.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Measurement of soil dielectric permittivity is widely used in remote sensing and the determination of soil water content. However, the interpretation of data from electrical sensors requires understanding of the dielectric properties of the soils. This study measures the solid permittivity of illitic arid zone soils in the presence and absence of pedogenic calcite. Calcite is estimated to have a permittivity nearly twice of quartz and can be a major constituent of arid zone soils. The use of estimated values for the dielectric permittivity of the soil mineral phase can lead to errors in the determination of soil properties. We measure the dielectric permittivity of 4 soils, two with 40% calcite the other two with similar mineralogy but without calcite. Measurements of coarse and fine crystalline calcite samples gave permittivity values of 9.1 and 8.4 respectively. However, modeling indicated that the permittivity of the pedogenic calcite had values of about 7.9 and 7.1. We speculate that the cause of this might be poor calcite crystallinity and crystal defects in the pedogenic calcite.