Gosling Lake, Alaska, Topography, Vegetation, Soils, Soil temperatures, and Site-Environmental Data, 2005-2021

This data set contains topography, permafrost soils, vegetation, soil temperatures, and site environmental data collected at Gosling Lake, central Alaska for monitoring thermokarst in burned and unburned black spruce ecosystems. For field monitoring of topography, water depths, and thaw depths over time (2005, 2014, 2021), we sampled every meter along 250 meter (m) transects oriented to cross replicate patches with differing degradation stages (Fig. SI2). For monitoring hydrology, soil, and vegetation over time, we used stratified, targeted sampling to establish three replicate permanent plots in each major ecotype (black spruce bog, spruce-birch bog, post-fire scrub bog, ericaceous bog, meadow bog, scrub fen, meadow fen) with the replicates broadly distributed along or near the transect. Vegetation was quantified by occular estimates (21 reconnassance plots or point sampling (11 permanent monitoring plots). A subset of monitoring plots had dataloggers for sampling soil temperatures.