Sulfide profile determination in a waterlogged soil microcosm by in situ filtration

An experimental soil microcosm system was built and soil was added and floo ded to study the vertical distribution of dissolved sulfide. We compared th e interstitial dissolved sulfide profiles among three experimental units by fitting them to the empirical model: sulfide = exp (b(0) + b(1) / (1-depth )). The 95% confidence intervals for b(0) and b(1) of the three experimenta l units overlapped for the same time period for the eight different samplin g times during a 95-day experiment, thus suggesting that depth-sulfide prof iles were not statistically different for the three experimental units. The profile determination in this study, which used an extraction method throu gh porous polyethylene filters, was less invasive than methods where sedime nt samples have been removed since it involved a minimum sediment alteratio n. Our system could be used to study chemical transformation in flooded soi ls over short intervals.