Rapid solubility and mineral storage of CO2 in basalt

The long-term security of geologic carbon storage is critical to its success and public acceptance. Much of the security risk associated with geological carbon storage stems from its buoyancy. Gaseous and supercritical CO2 are less dense than formation waters, providing a driving force for it to escape back to the surface. This buoyancy can be eliminated by the dissolution of CO2 into water prior to, or during its injection into the subsurface. The dissolution makes it possible to inject into fractured rocks and further enhance mineral storage of CO2 especially if injected into silicate rocks rich in divalent metal cations such as basalts and ultra-mafic rocks. We have demonstrated the dissolution of CO2 into water during its injection into basalt leading to its geologic solubility storage in less than five minutes and potential geologic mineral storage within few years after injection [1–3]. The storage potential of CO2 within basaltic rocks is enormous. All the carbon released from burning of all fossil fuel on Earth, 5000 GtC, can theoretically be stored in basaltic rocks [4]

Genetic mapping in the Triticeae

Genetic maps are the fundamental tools to identify features of phenotypes that are linked to specific genetic loci and eventually DNA sequences or genes. The major use of genetic linkage maps has, therefore, been to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL). Genetic maps are also essential for marker assisted selection, comparative mapping, high-resolution mapping and map based cloning. To date, over 40 maps with at least 300 markers have been published for different Triticeae populations. The quality of genetic maps can be affected by a number of factors and map curation ensures that map quality issues are identified and, where possible, resolved. We report on the issues involved in the production of quality genetic linkage maps by inspection of marker genotype data after map construction