par Herbauts, Jacques 
;Dehalu, France-Anne ;Gruber, Wolf
Référence European journal of soil science, 45, 4, page (379-385)
Publication Publié, 1994-12
;Dehalu, France-Anne ;Gruber, Wolf Référence European journal of soil science, 45, 4, page (379-385)
Publication Publié, 1994-12
Article révisé par les pairs
| Résumé : | The aim of this study was to improve the quantitative determination of the plant opal content (i.e. phytoliths) in soils.The proposed method is based on: (i) the separation of plant opal from the silt and sand fractions of the soil, using heavy liquid flotation (aqueous solution of ZnBr2, density = 1.92 g cm−3); (ii) the subsequent determination of alkali-soluble silicon by atomic absorption spectrometry. Extraction and analytical procedures were tested on a broad sample of temperate and tropical soils with very different phytolith contents.Our investigations lead to the following conclusions: (i) a selective dissolution of opal in alkaline solutions (e.g. hot 0.5 m NaOH as proposed by Jones, 1969) is inaccurate so that a sink-float method must be used before any dissolution procedure; (ii) to dissolve opal completely, a 0.5 M NaOH dissolution treatment at 150°C can be easily and successfully carried out in steel PTFE-lined pressure vessels; (iii) the reproducibility of the determination is satisfactory for a step-by-step procedure (mean coefficient of variation = 13.4%).The comparison of this new method of quantitative assessment of soil opal with two other methods (gravimetric and phytolith-counting methods), shows very highly significant correlations (P<0.001). Therefore, this procedure is a useful tool in studies connected with pedological and environmental history. |
