Intact soil core collection and analysis of chemical and physical attributes is carried out annually at the ALTAR Desert Uplands 2 site to a target (100cm) depth. Repeat sampling takes place at 24 fixed points associated within a radius around the core site flux tower, with additional cores collected, analysed and published where available. Access to this dataset is available on request subject to agreement. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are currently being reformatted for integration into the OneTERN framework and are available upon request during this transition period.
Credit
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.
Data was collected on Indigenous freehold land under the custodianship of YACHATDAC. The lands where this data was collected is on the traditional lands of the Iningai people. As both the landholder and traditional owner, TERN, ALTAR and QUT recognise the cultural rights and Indigenous data sovereignty of the Iningai people in relation to this data and research activities.
This work is jointly funded by the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), an Australian Government National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) project with co-investment by the Queensland Government Research Infrastructure Co-investment Fund (RICF).
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.
Purpose
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).
Lineage
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.
