TERN Ecosystem Surveillance: Soil Pit Sample
<p>This dataset comprises a comprehensive archive of soil pit samples collected from TERN Ecosystem Surveillance monitoring plots across Australia. Soil is characterised from a 1-meter soil pit located near the southwest corner of each 1-hectare monitoring plot. A soil sample is collected down the soil profile from each recognised horizon, and are collected as part of the soil characterisation process including detailed morphological and profile descriptions. Collected following the standardised Ecosystem Surveillance methodology, the dataset includes over 5,800 soil pit samples archived in the TERN Australia Soil and Herbarium Collection, located at the University of Adelaide's Waite Campus.</p>
<p>Each record includes detailed metadata such as voucher barcode for soil collected from each horizon at the soil pit, site and visit information and sampling details. Soil pit samples are accessible and available for loan upon request through the EcoPlots Samples portal via an Expression of Interest.</p>
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2011-06-16
- Date (Publication)
- 2025-06-17
- Date (Revision)
- 2025-12-10
- Edition
- 1.0
Publisher
Author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Sparrow, Ben (Director - TERN Ausplots and Eco-informatics)
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Tokmakoff, Andrew (Technical Lead)
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Leitch, Emrys (Senior Botanist and Field Lead)
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Guerin, Greg ()
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - O'Neill, Sally (Scientific Officer)
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Macdonald, Christina (Data Project Officer)
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Lowe, Andy (Professor)
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Flitton, Rick ()
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Saleeba, Tom (software developer/solution architect)
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Coish, Caleb (Business Manager)
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Starkey, Michael ()
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Irvine, Katie ()
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Francis, Nikki ()
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Finlayson, Tamara ()
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Pink, Lachlan ()
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Finn, Luke ()
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Martin-Fores, Irene ()
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
- Website
- https://www.tern.org.au/
- Purpose
- <p>TERN Ecosystem Surveillance is a national plot-based field monitoring program that tracks the direction and magnitude of change across Australia’s major biomes. Information on soils and vegetation is collected according to standardised, widely endorsed and consistent protocols across all plots, and includes the collection of soil and vegetation samples and specimens for subsequent analysis.</p> <p>TERN soil pit samples are collected from across the TERN Australia network of 960 monitoring sites nationally, with 410 plot revisits. Large areas of Australia lack sufficient soil information, TERN Ecosystem Surveillance address this gap by collecting standardised soil characterisation information and associated soil samples. Soil pit samples are made available to researchers for future ecological and environmental studies. Soil pit samples enable in-depth characterisation of soil morphology, structure, and stratification, and contribute valuable data to national and international soil information systems.</p> <p>The soil pit samples support the interpretation of soil horizons and physical properties. The archived samples and associated profile descriptions serve as long-term, open-access reference material to support ecological, agricultural, and environmental research across Australia. The samples collected are a once-off snapshot in time. Generally, the quantities allowable for loan are selectable from the following categories (0-10g, 10-20g, 20-60g, 60g-100g). The quantity required for loan will depend on the type of analysis required. The TERN soil pit samples are all archived in the TERN Australia Soil and Herbarium Collection.</p>
- 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.
- Credit
- <p></p>Datasets funded by TERN include the following statement “This work was jointly funded by the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), an Australian Government National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) project.
- Status
- On going
Point of contact
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Lewis, Donna ()
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite Road
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Point of contact
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Steen, Carly ()
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite Road
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Point of contact
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite Road
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
- Topic category
-
- Environment
Extent
- Description
- Australia's major biomes
N
S
E
W
))
Temporal extent
- Time period
- 2011-06-16
- Title
- AusPlots Rangelands Survey Protocols Manual
- Website
-
AusPlots Rangelands Survey Protocols Manual
Related documentation
- Maintenance and update frequency
- As needed
- GCMD Science Keywords
- ANZSRC Fields of Research
- TERN Parameter Vocabulary
-
- soil electrical conductivity
- Decisiemens per Metre
- soil pH
- Unitless
- soil fabric
- Unitless
- soil effervescence
- Unitless
- soil texture grade
- Unitless
- lithology of coarse fragments
- Unitless
- abundance of segregations
- Unitless
- abundance of coarse fragments
- Unitless
- smallest peds size
- Millimetre
- size of coarse fragments
- Unitless
- mottle abundance
- Unitless
- grade of pedality
- Unitless
- nature of segregations
- Unitless
- form of segregations
- Unitless
- mottle colour
- Unitless
- size of segregations
- Unitless
- mottle size
- Unitless
- shape of coarse fragments
- Unitless
- second smallest peds pedality type
- Unitless
- soil horizon
- Unitless
- wet soil colour
- Unitless
- QUDT Units of Measure
- GCMD Horizontal Resolution Ranges
- GCMD Vertical Resolution Ranges
- GCMD Temporal Resolution Ranges
- Keywords (Discipline)
-
- TERN Ecosystem Surveillance
- Soil Pit Sample
Resource constraints
- Use limitation
- The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license allows others to copy, distribute, display, and create derivative works provided that they credit the original source and any other nominated parties. Details are provided at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- File name
- 88x31.png
- File description
- CCBy Logo from creativecommons.org
- File type
- png
- Title
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
- CC-BY
- Edition
- 4.0
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- TERN services are provided on an "as-is" and "as available" basis. Users use any TERN services at their discretion and risk. They will be solely responsible for any damage or loss whatsoever that results from such use including use of any data obtained through TERN and any analysis performed using the TERN infrastructure. <br />Web links to and from external, third party websites should not be construed as implying any relationships with and/or endorsement of the external site or its content by TERN. <br /><br />Please advise any work or publications that use this data via the online form at https://www.tern.org.au/research-publications/#reporting
- Other constraints
- Please cite this dataset as {Author} ({PublicationYear}). {Title}. {Version, as appropriate}. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Dataset. {Identifier}.
- Other constraints
- <p> TERN provides data, samples and site-based research infrastructure freely to Australian and international scientific communities. In recognition of these research services, we ask that when you use them, you acknowledge NCRIS-enabled TERN. </p><p> Reporting on the use of digital assets and research infrastructure is a key performance indicator for TERN. The simple step of acknowledging TERN enables us to record that the infrastructure is being used, and helps TERN to continue to be funded to deliver long term ecological monitoring data and samples.</p>
- Other constraints
- <p><strong>Acknowledging TERN and NCRIS in publications</strong></p> <p>Data was sourced from Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) infrastructure, which is enabled by the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).</p> <p>If you have any questions about TERN or NCRIS acknowledgements or would like copies of logos or branding guidelines please contact us tern@uq.edu.au.</p> <p>Please send TERN copies of papers, books, book chapters, and conference papers etc. that have been created using any of our data as soon as possible after their acceptance. This allows us to easily track the use of our infrastructure and enables us to list your publication on our website increasing the exposure of your research.</p>
Resource constraints
- Classification
- Unclassified
Distribution Information
- Distribution format
-
Distributor
Distributor
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
80 Meiers Road, Indooroopilly, Queensland, 4068, Australia
Indooroopilly
Queensland
4068
Australia
- OnLine resource
- TERN EcoPlots Portal: Soil Pit Sample
- OnLine resource
- ro-crate-metadata.json
Resource lineage
- Statement
- <p>Soil pit samples are collected at intervals down the soil profile (~1m), within horizons at one location in the southwest corner at a plot. Additional supporting data is gathered at the pit and in the TERN lab, including soil classification, bulk density, pH and electrical conductivity (EC). Soil pit samples can be used for physical and chemical analyses. Before storage, samples are oven dried at 40 <sup>o</sup>C for approximately 48 hours, sieved, ground and then stored in sealed containers. Samples are organised by plot location and stored under ambient temperature conditions in the TERN Australia Soil and Herbarium Collection. For each horizon recognised down the soil profile, a sample from each horizon is collected (~500g per horizon).</p> <p>For detailed methods on soil pit sample collection, refer to the <a href="https://ternaus.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TERNSup/pages/1193738270/AusPlots+Rangelands+Manual+v1.2.9">AusPlots Rangelands Survey Protocols Manual</a>.</p>
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Title
- Ausplots Rangelands Survey Protocols Manual
- Website
-
https://ternaus.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TERNSup/pages/1193738270/AusPlots+Rangelands+Manual+v1.2.9
Method documentation
Reference System Information
- Reference system identifier
- EPSG/EPSG:4326
- Reference system type
- Geodetic Geographic 2D
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
-
urn:uuid/a8456857-357d-40c6-b33d-43d107a956b3
- Title
- TERN GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Point of contact
- Title
- TERN Ecosystem Surveillance
Identifier
- Codespace
- https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/
- Description
- Parent Metadata Record
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Dataset
- Metadata linkage
-
https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/a8456857-357d-40c6-b33d-43d107a956b3
Point-of-truth metadata URL
- Date info (Creation)
- 2025-06-10T00:00:00.000000+00:00
- Date info (Revision)
- 2025-12-10T10:21:56.432268+00:00
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO 19115-1:2014/AMD 1:2018 Geographic information - Metadata - Fundamentals
- Edition
- 1
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO/TS 19115-3:2016
- Edition
- 1.0
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO/TS 19157-2:2016
- Edition
- 1.0
- Title
- Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-3:2016 and ISO 19157-2:2016
- Date (published)
- 2021
- Edition
- 1.0
Identifier
Overviews
Spatial extent
N
S
E
W
Provided by
Associated resources
Not available