Challenges for the New Century of Soil Survey: Quantification and Representation in the Age of Big Data.

The National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS) maintains an extensive but largely underutilized database of soil information. This information includes taxonomical, morphological, physical, chemical, biological, mineralogical, geographical, geomorphological, and climatological data. The goal of this presentation is to explore new ways of quantifying and visualizing this information in order to advance basic science in soils. In addition, the collection of new data will be proposed to further inform future questions in soil science. Examples will be given for how this information can be used effectively to solve questions in related disciplines especially at broad temporal and spatial scales.