Soil Matric Potential and Physical Properties from Arctic Alaska
Updated 1mo ago
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Available on 2 platforms
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Description
NASA's dataset provides lab-measured soil properties from nine sites along the Dalton Highway in Arctic Alaska. Samples collected in August 2018 include soil water matric potential, dielectric properties, electrical conductivity, moisture, organic matter, bulk density, porosity, fiber content, root biomass, and mineral texture. This data supports the NASA ABoVE Airborne Campaign to relate hydrological and dielectric properties of permafrost active layer soil.
Use Cases
Modeling relationships between soil dielectric properties and hydrological characteristics like matric potential and moisture.
Analyzing the physical composition of permafrost active layer soils, including organic matter, bulk density, and mineral texture.
Calibrating remote sensing data from airborne campaigns with ground-truth lab measurements of soil electrical conductivity and permittivity.
Studying spatial variability of soil properties like porosity and root biomass across nine sites in northern and central Alaska.
Strengths
Data collection uses standardized METER TEROS 12 and TEROS 21 probes for dielectric, conductivity, and moisture measurements.
Samples cover a defined geographic transect with nine sites along the Dalton Highway in Alaska.
Lab measurements were conducted over a three-year span, suggesting controlled and repeated analysis.
Dataset includes a wide range of both basic physical properties and specific hydrological/dielectric measurements.
Limitations
Exact row count, column names, and dataset size are not provided on any platform.
Sources conflict on the last updated date: Data.gov lists March 2026, while NASA Earthdata lists August 2018.
License is specified as 'other-license-specified' on Data.gov but is 'None' on NASA Earthdata, creating ambiguity.
Provenance
Source
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Collection Method
Soil samples collected from pits at nine sites, with lab measurements using METER TEROS probes over three years.
Time Range
2018-08-21 to 2021 (inferred from three-year lab measurement span following 2018 collection)
Freshness
2026-03-12 21:15:39.397731
Geography
Nine sites along the Dalton Highway in northern and central regions of Alaska, USA.
License details are unclear; one source specifies 'other-license-specified' while another lists 'None'. The 2026 update date on Data.gov may be a metadata error, conflicting with the 2018 date on NASA Earthdata.