Over the past few decades, many studies have investigated soil functioning using a wide range of 3D imaging techniques. For example, thermal neutron tomography has been used to study the distribution of water within soil (resolution ~ 80 m) , while magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has revealed root structures and water . These techniques have revealed valuable insights at the larger spatial scale (e.g. resolutions of ~ 80 m for neutron tomography , and 600 m for MRI ). However many soil processes operate at lengthscales much smaller than this (~ 1 -10 m). reflecting the multiscale nature of soil pore structure. Equally some key biological structures such as fungal hyphae are also of the order ~ 1-20 m. Hence to obtain a genuinely microscale understanding of soil structure and dynamics, a higher resolution technique is needed, and the leading technique in this context is microscale X-ray computed tomography (X-CT), with resolution down to ~ 1 m on typical setups. X-CT generates a contrast based on the electron density of soil components, which means it is unaffected by the magnetic properties of soil components in contrast to MRI . X-CT provides excellent imaging of the mineral phases of soil, e.g. aluminosilicates, since there is a strong contrast between these electron-dense phases and the lower-density phases: