Dataset for geochemical characteristics of purple rock and its weathering crust in Sichuan Basin (before 1990)

Purple soil is a special species due to mode and speed of pedogenesis with world pedologists’ concerns. Its parent materials mainly include talus material, residual deposit, and weathered bedrock of purple sand shale formed in the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous systems. Purple soil has its color, physicochemical characteristics, and mineralogical composition derived from the parent materials. This dataset is a quarriable logical one, developed from the geochemical findings of purple rock and its weathered crust in the book of “Purple Soils in China (Part I)”. The dataset consists of 11 worksheets in 4 parts, i.e.: (1) general characteristics of parent materials and rock strata for purple soil, (2) purple rock types and their geochemical properties, (3) geochemical composition and characteristics of weathered purple rock crust, and (4) classification of the weathered purple rock crust and its diagnostic indicators in the Sichuan Basin of China. The dataset inherits and protects the historic findings in purple soil research and supports research and applications of soil fertility, ecological environment, and land resource utilization in the purple soil regions.