LSCE database of soil profile 14C

The "LSCE database of soil profile 14C" gathers 14C soil profile data published in the literature and the metadata associated with. 14C is a typical constraint on estimates of soil carbon turnover and is commonly used to assess soil processes such as carbon stabilization or to evaluate the suitability of agronomical practices to sustainably increase soil carbon storage. Many 14C data on soil organic fractions are published. They are sometimes published as an individual measurement (a single date on a single soil level) and sometimes as part of a profile characterized by several 14C. Here we present an archive of soil data that include reported 14C measurements from bulk soils, distinct soil carbon pools isolated in the laboratory by a variety of soil fractionation methods or chemical treatments and specific organic compound from a soil profile. The core of the "LSCE database of soil profile 14C" is a relational database structured around individual datasets (entries) and organized hierarchically to report soil radiocarbon data, measured at different physical and temporal scales as well as other soil or environmental properties that may also be measured and may assist with interpretation and context. These metadata are either extracted from the original publication itself or added by the principal investigator to complete the data set. They are of several types. 1- Information on the original article: bibliographic reference, scientific objective (soil science, paleoclimatology) and the way the 14C values were calculated. 2- information on the profile: year of sampling, geographical data (latitude, longitude, altitude), soil type (according to several nomenclatures), type of parent material (if possible), soil use, associated vegetation, climate (with monthly precision), sampling modality (discrete or continuous). 3- information on the level: top and bottom of the layers, horizon, if it belongs to a modern soil or to a paleosol, texture (e.g. clay content), bulk density, pH, carbonate content, organic carbon content, nitrogen content, carbon stock estimation. 4- information on the 14C analyzed fraction: fraction generic name, physical and chemical treatments, 14C data (in the article unit and recalculated in the other units), 14C measurement modalities, 14C laboratory reference, d13C, d15N. This database was taken as exhaustive of what was available in the international literature in 2015. It has been slightly updated since then. This database differs from other existing databases of its kind by the wide range of metadata it offers. It can be used in conjunction with the "soil natural 13C labelling profiles database" (PI: Jérôme Balesdent) deposited at INRAE and available at https://doi.org/10.15454/KMNR6R. The synthesized dataset is available in three forms: the original Filemaker files that contain both original extensive and summarized data as reported by the authors of the publications/datasets and supplementary data as added by PI (and mentioned as it) and two excel files that contain for the first one all available data and for the second one, the most commonly used data. Below articles that briefly describe the database Mathieu, J.A., Hatté, C., Balesdent, J. and Parent, E. (2015) Deep soil carbon dynamics are driven more by soil type than by climate: a worldwide meta-analysis of radiocarbon profiles. Glob Chang Biol 21, 4278-4292. 10.1111/gcb.13012 Jreich, R., Hatté, C., Balesdent, J. and Parent, E. (2018) Bayesian selection of mixed covariates from a latent layer: application to hierarchical modeling of soil carbon dynamics. Journal of the Sfds 159, 128-155.