Brigalow Belt South 1 Soil Cores Data Collection 

Intact soil core collection and analysis of chemical and physical attributes is carried out annually at the ALTAR Brigalow Belt Banana 1 site to a target (100cm) depth. Repeat sampling takes place at 24 fixed points associated within a radius around the core site fluxtower, with additional cores collected, analysed and published where available. 

We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. This research site is managed by the Queensland University of Technology.
This work is jointly funded by the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), an Australian Government National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) project.
We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
 

The primary objective of the soil coring program is to quantify annual changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) stocks to a depth of 1 m, providing a direct measure of belowground carbon and nutrient dynamics through time. These repeated measurements are designed to complement the continuous flux observations collected by the eddy covariance towers, enabling cross-referencing between changes in soil carbon stocks and net ecosystem carbon exchange (NEE). 

A minimum of 24 soil cores are collected per site following a Balanced Acceptance Sampling (BAS) design (Robertson et al., 2013), providing a spatially representative and repeatable sampling framework. The same sampling locations were revisited each year with a spatial accuracy of ± 5 m, constituting a static synchronous sampling design. Each core (cutting diameter = 38 mm) was sectioned into predefined depth intervals of 0–10, 10–30, 30–50, 50–70, and 70–100 cm. Samples were oven-dried and passed through a 2 mm sieve to remove coarse fragments. The < 2 mm fraction was tested for the presence of inorganic carbon; where detected, samples were pre-treated with acid prior to analysis. Fine fractions were then finely ground and analysed for total carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) using a LECO elemental analyser.