Linking soil organic matter thermal stability with contents of clay, bound water, organic carbon and nitrogen

Thermogravimetry is a technique measuring mass change during programmed heating. In soil analysis, it is used for determination of content of volatile fractions, thermally labile and stable fractions of soil organic matter and minerals. One method of data analysis uses the determination of mass losses in 10 °C temperature areas. In the past, their mutual correlation revealed several larger temperature areas of mass losses, which appeared to be universal for all types of soils equilibrated at the same relative humidity. However, it is unclear if mass losses in these temperature areas are connected with biogeochemical functions or processes in soil. In this work, using data from > 300 soils of different types, geographical origin, and land uses we demonstrate their linear correlation with content of organic C, total N and clay content and biological activity or their combinations. In particular, the results showed that mass losses between 200 and 300 °C, which is related to thermally labile fraction, correlates best with total organic C and less with total organic N. From 300 to 450 °C represents a more stabilized soil organic matter pool and can be best described by either by C or N contents. Mass loss 450–550 °C correlates strongly with clay content, which suggests a connection to organo-clay complexes. The low temperature interval of 30–200 °C, which corresponded to weakly and strongly bound water showed a strong connection with clay content, but a weaker connection to microbial activity. The developed equations were corrected and verified using additional soil sample sets. The correlations along with their universal applicability lead to conclusion about the possible connection of mass losses in these temperature areas to, still unknown, biogeochemical soil functions. The obtained equations may represent a new approach of rapid and universally applicable “mathematical” fractionation requiring only contents of soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, clay and water in soil equilibrated at 76% relative humidity.