Global Organic Soil Carbon and Nitrogen (Zinke et al.)

Methods used for analytical carbon determinations were dry combustion, 'wet combustion', or loss on ignition with adjustments made to the values obtained with the last two methods. Nitrogen was determined by the Kjeldahl method on the soil fine earth fraction and reported as total organic nitrogen. The data can be used to estimate the size of the soil's organic carbon and nitrogen pools at equilibrium with natural soil-forming factors.

Most of the data are from profiles associated with natural vegetation so they constitute a baseline for evaluation of the effects that disturbance or modification to natural vegetation has on soil carbon equilibrium at either a global or regional scale. The data can also be used for understanding the range and viability of soil carbon and nitrogen pools for specific ecosystems or climatic regimes.