Mineralogical, geochemical and magnetic susceptibility data from a deep hydrothermally altered profile in a semi-arid region (Chilean Coastal Cordillera)

This data publication contains mineralogical, geochemical and magnetic susceptibility data of an 87.2 m deep profile of hydrothermally altered plutonic rock in a semi-arid region of the Chilean Coastal Cordillera (Santa Gracia). The profile was recovered during a drilling campaign (March and April 2019) as part of the German Science Foundation (DFG) priority research program SPP-1803 “EarthShape: Earth Surface Shaping by Biota” which aims at understanding weathering of plutonic rock in dependency on different climatic conditions. The goal of the drilling campaign was to recover the entire weathering profile spanning from the surface to the weathering front and to investigate the weathering processes at depth. To this end, we used rock samples obtained by drilling and soil/saprolite samples from a manually dug 2 m deep soil pit next to the borehole. To elucidate the role of iron-bearing minerals for the weathering, we measured the magnetic susceptibility, determined the mineral content and analysed the geochemistry as well as the composition of Fe-bearing minerals (Mössbauer spectroscopy) in selected samples.