Combined physical and chemical fractionation

More recently, a couple of fractionation methods evolved, which combine physical and chemical fractionation steps, such as extraction or oxidation following density or size fractionation. While physical fractionation captures the effects of particle sizes and soil matrix on SOC dynamics, chemical fractionation considers chemical composition effects and is also capable to destroy organo-mineral boundings or separate protected from unprotected SOC. Such combinations are thus likely to be most successful in isolating SOC fractions of distinct properties. This is reflected in the fact, that during the fractionation method study (Peoplau et al. under review), those methods achieved the highest range in turnover rates across fractions. A total of five different methods participated and are presented.