SOIL, 6, 53–88, 2020 https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-6-53-2020 © Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under SOIL the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Variations in soil chemical and physical properties explain basin-wide Amazon forest soil carbon concentrations Carlos Alberto Quesada1, Claudia Paz1,2, Erick Oblitas Mendoza1, Oliver Lawrence Phillips3, Gustavo Saiz4,5, and Jon Lloyd4,6,7 1Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Manaus, Cx. Postal 2223 – CEP 69080-971, Brazil 2Universidade Estadual Paulista, Departamento de Ecologia, CEP 15506-900, Rio Claro, São Paulo, Brazil 3School of Geography, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK 4Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Buckhurst Road, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 7PY, UK 5Department of Environmental Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Concepción, Chile 6School of Tropical and Marine Sciences and Centre for Terrestrial Environmental and Sustainability Sciences, James Cook University, Cairns, 4870, Queensland, Australia 7Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Filosofia Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Av Bandeirantes, 3900, CEP 14040-901, Bairro Monte Alegre , Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil Correspondence: Carlos Alberto Quesada (
[email protected]) Received: 26 April 2019 – Discussion started: 11 June 2019 Revised: 8 November 2019 – Accepted: 2 December 2019 – Published: 11 February 2020 Abstract. We investigate the edaphic, mineralogical and climatic controls of soil organic carbon (SOC) concen- tration utilising data from 147 primary forest soils (0–30 cm depth) sampled in eight different countries across the Amazon Basin. Sampled across 14 different World Reference Base soil groups, our data suggest that sta- bilisation mechanism varies with pedogenetic level.