Characteristics of Phosphorus in Some Eastern Australian Acid Sulfate Soils

<正>Forty-five acid sulfate topsoil samples (depth < 0.5 m) from 15 soil cores were collected from 11 locations along the New South Wales coast, Australia. There was an overall trend for the concentration of the HC1-extractable P to increase along with increasing amounts of organic C and the HCl-extractable trivalent metals in the topsoils of some less-disturbed acid sulfate soils (pH < 4.5). This suggests that inorganic P in these soils probably accumulated via biological cycling and was retained by complexation with trivalent metals or their oxides and hydroxides. While there was no clear correlation between pH and the water-extractable P, the concentration of the water-extractable P tended to increase with increasing amounts of the HCl-extractable P. This disagrees with some established models which suggest that the concentration of solution P in acid soils is independent of total P and decreases with increasing acidity. The high concentration of sulfate present in acid sulfate soils appeared to affect th