The Isotope Virtual Research Environment developed within ITINERIS Project: example of mixing modelling

Applications of conventional (e.g., H, O, C, N, and S), as well as non-conventional stable (e.g., B, Li, Fe, Cu, Zn, and Mg) and radiogenic (Sr, Nd, and Pb) isotopes provide unique opportunities to evaluate deep geology and critical zone processes. One of the most important environmental issues affecting human development in the twenty-first century are represented by human-induced climate change, which can be successfully addressed using isotope compositions. A considerable number of studies have been published on isotope geochemistry applied to geological and critical zone processes, and their number is ever-growing. In the light of this, an inventory of stable and radiogenic isotopes becomes a fundamental tool to track processes involving fluids, minerals and rock evolution and origin, as well investigations on soils and plants and other pools. A national database on environmental isotopes is still missing so far, and data and information still unfaire and scattered across various sources and institutions, generating difficulties in data and information recovery. In the framework of the ITINERIS Project (PNRR), the Work Package 8.9 is aimed at building the ISOTOPE Virtual Research Environment (VRE), which will pioneer the establishment of Italy’s first comprehensive national VRE service encompassing the national database on stable isotopes. The new Isotope VRE incorporates tools for analysis, interpretation, and modelling services allowing researchers and Stakeholders to retrieve coordinated information and analysis tools. One of the most common model to unravel biogeochemical processes consists of quantifying the contributions of multiple sources to a mixture, using isotope data along with chemical compositions. Given the isotopic compositions of diverse sources, isotopic mixing models can be used to calculate the relative source proportions. Here, we present a new application capable of calculating, quantifying, and showing the outcomes of two- and three-component mixing dynamics. The first results demonstrate the great usefulness that the creation of the Isotope VRE can have in understanding processes occurring on Earth Systems such as mixing. Other mathematical approaches will became available soon. For this reason, the creation of the Isotope VRE is aimed to provide to the scientific community an isotopic data sharing set in a virtual research environment able to offer a series of powerful tools to understand and interpret environmental processes.