Potential accumulation of toxic trace elements in soils during enhanced rock weathering

Xavier Dupla, Benjamin Möller, Philippe C. Baveye, Stéphanie Grand Abstract Terrestrial enhanced rock weathering (ERW) is a carbon dioxide removal technology that aims at accelerating one of the most powerful negative feedbacks on Earth's climate, the chemical weathering of silicates. To achieve this, ERW proposes to spread ground silicate rock on agricultural soils. According to many models, global application rates of 40 tonnes of ground basaltic rock per hectare and per year would be necessary to sequester a significant amount of CO2, representing up to 24% of the current net annual increase in atmospheric CO2. When assessing the viabil...