BOREAS Soil Radon-222 Activity Data from Boreal Forest Sites

Northern Study Area (NSA) sites in the boreal forest contain measurements of Radon-222 activity, soil carbon inventories, and soil respiration rates. The BOREAS TGB-12 team collected this data to calculate carbon and nitrogen inventories and determine carbon turnover rates. Measurements were taken from November 15, 1993, to August 16, 1994, across several sites.

Use Cases

• Calculating carbon and nitrogen inventory in moss and mineral soil layers at NSA sites.
• Determining carbon input and turnover rates using fire chronosequence and radiocarbon data.
• Linking soil respiration rate changes to shifts in the 14C content of soil CO2.
• Estimating the average 'age' of respired CO2 based on Radon-222 activity measurements.
• Analyzing carbon accumulation rates in regrowing mosses following stand-killing fires.

Strengths

• Data collection leverages local fire chronosequences for temporal analysis of carbon accumulation.
• Measurements cover a defined 9-month period from November 1993 to August 1994.
• Dataset is hosted on multiple authoritative platforms (NASA EarthData, Data.gov), indicating curation and importance.

Limitations

• Specific column names, row counts, and file sizes are not provided by any source.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date: one states 1994-08-16, another states 2026-03-13.

Provenance

Source

BOREAS TGB-12 team, organized by ORNL_CLOUD.

Collection Method

Field measurements of soil carbon inventories, soil gas carbon concentration, soil respiration rates, and Radon-222 activity.

Time Range

1993-11 15 to 1994-08-16

Freshness

2026-03-13 05:22:17.487279

Geography

Northern Study Area (NSA) sites in the boreal forest.