Soil profile descriptions, Lake Wellman region, Antarctica

We sampled a chronosequence of soils on moraines in the Darwin Mountains ranging from early Holocene (10 ky) to mid Quaternary (ca 900 ky) in age to test if the structure and diversity of microbial communities are related to soil development. Samples were taken from a 6km radius of Lake Wellman (79° 55' 16.2" S, 156° 55' 30.7" E) in the south-eastern Darwin mountains. Our experimental design included sampling at three depths and three faces (1 m2) of four pedons (1-7 m3) on each of four drifts for a total of 144 samples. Data includes: GPS location, colour, texture, salt stage, weathering stage, depth of coherence, depth of oxidation, depth of visible salts, depth of rock ghosts, parent material and landform and USDA Soil Taxonomy classification. All profiles sampled for chemical (pH, EC, 1:5 extract for Ca, Mg, Na, K, Cl, NO3, SO4) and microbial analyses.