Method of laser diffraction spectra’s deconvolution for characteristics strength of soil microaggregates

Abstract

Laser diffractometry, yielding exactly, cannot replace the pipette analysis of the soils/sediment particle size distribution. But laser diffractometry can be used to improve soil physical knowledge related with soil structure stability, for example, to assess the degree of microaggregates preservation after their partial dispersion. For this purpose it is necessary to use deconvolution of the laser diffraction curves, with the following analysis of the number of LD-fractions and their properties. It was pproposed 4 indicators of LD-fractions: theoretical number of fractions (N), the real number of fractions (n), period of fractions (T), and their dispersion (D). Introduced a new indicator of the aggregates strength (RMA), taking into account the role of only 3 independent criteria: N, D and T. According to RMA- indicator, the aggregates in paleosols are stronger than aggregates in recent andosols.