Key points
- The Australian National Soil Archive has more than 100,000 specimens from all over the country, providing an important snapshot of our soil history.
- Some detective work at the Canberra archive has unearthed details of the earliest soil sample in the collection, dated to March 1926.
- The sample, which has now been added to the archive, was collected from a property near Adelaide belonging to the renowned Antarctic explorer Sir Douglas Mawson.
Soil is the very foundation of our planet, our food security and landscape resilience – it supports plant growth, filters water and stores carbon. So, it’s important we understand it and how it changes over time.
The origin of soil goes back around 4.5 billion years, during the Hadean Eon, when the Earth’s surface was still in its formative stages.
In that period, Earth was largely composed of molten rock, and the atmosphere was devoid of oxygen. As the planet cooled, the crust began to solidify, and the process of weathering and erosion began, leading to soil.
Fast forward to a milestone being marked in Canberra
The Australian National Soil Archive (ANSA) is one of the earliest established such facilities in the world, supporting soil analysis and scientific research, the conservation of soil data and the ongoing sustainable management of Australian soils.
CSIRO’s Georgia Reed has overseen management of the archive since joining Australia’s national science agency in 2023.
She manages the thousands of specimens in the collection, accepting and processing new samples, recording their data and welcoming scientists and other visitors to the archive to access the collection for research.
She also plays somewhat of a detective role at the archive, and it was during one of her recent investigations to research and archive a group of very old soil specimens that she discovered they were the oldest in the collection.
“I have been working with data from a very early sample and came across information which dated it to March 1926. So, this month we are celebrating a milestone birthday for our oldest specimen,” said the soil detective.
She said while it is known that there were even earlier CSIRO soil surveys in Australia, the 1926 samples are the earliest held in the collection at Black Mountain.
“The notes I found with these early samples were written by Dr Maxwell Jacobs, who collected the soil from the Kuitpo Forest, south east of Adelaide.”
A simple soil sample unveils an interesting story
Maxwell Jacobs (1905–1979) was a prominent Australian forester who studied at the University of Adelaide, receiving the Lowry scholarship to research forest soils.
With this scholarship he went on to become one of the first post graduate students at the Waite Agricultural Research Institute in the University of Adelaide, coincidentally the main location today for CSIRO’s soil research in South Australia.
Dr Jacob’s scientific contributions are well documented – he described several Eucalyptus species and went on to author The Growth Habits of Eucalypts in 1955, a globally recognised text. He also has a street in Canberra named after him.
Ms Reed said, luckily for the archive and for soil research, he was also a good note taker.
“When I read through Dr Jacob’s notes that accompanied the 1926 soil samples, I came across a fascinating reference to the Antarctic explorer Sir Douglas Mawson.
“We believe that the land from where the samples were collected was owned by Mawson, as there are references to him in the notes and we discovered he had ties to the area through a 1923 Trove article on the Kuitpo Forest fire.”
The archivist said it made sense as he was also a professor at the University of Adelaide.
“The 1926 Kuitpo project provided a valuable case study, showing that historic soil specimens can be successfully archived and used for modern research and this success highlights the potential of the many un archived historic soil samples currently held in storage at Black Mountain.”
Ms Reed said digitising the original data was the essential first step and the public had an important role to play.
Through DigiVol - a collaboration between the Australian Museum and the Atlas of Living Australia - citizen scientists have begun transcribing nearly 19,000 soil data cards.
“Without this effort to convert handwritten records into digital form, this information would remain an untapped resource for soil science,” she said.
It’s not just dirt – the importance of soil archives to science
Soil archives provide important snapshots of soils from a specific time and location, allowing researchers to re-evaluate soils of the past in the context of the present.
Group Lead for CSIRO Soil Science Dr Ben Macdonald said the samples in the archive tell a rich story of our different landscapes and lead to an improved understanding of long-term soil change.
“Soil is much more than the earth beneath our feet. As the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) points out ‘soil is where our food system begins’,” Dr Macdonald explained.
He said soil science was sometimes misunderstood in terms of its importance to agriculture and our environment more widely.
“In the ANSA collection we have soil collected over a century from every corner of Australia, from all kinds of people, scientists and citizen scientists alike, including samples from the 1939 Simpson Desert expedition lead by Dr CT Madigan, another member of the Australasian Antarctic 1911-1914 Expedition.
“Each of these samples is like a chapter in a book which adds to a bigger story allowing us to undertake research into everything from carbon assessments, and fertiliser and erosion studies, to changes in soil condition.
“It can also underpin decision making around the impact of land management which is so important for the future sustainability of Australian agri-food systems.”
If you would like to get involved in the DigiVol project, find out more about volunteering via the Atlas of Living Australia.