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    • Gamma Ray Data: Peck (FIFE)

    Metadata Updated: September 19, 2025

    Airborne soil moisture measurement is based on the difference between natural terrestrial gamma radiation flux measured for comparatively wet and dry soils. The presence of moisture in the soil causes an effective increase in the soil density resulting in an increased attenuation of the gamma flux for relatively wet soil and a correspondingly lower flux at the ground surface. As part of the FIFE experiment, natural terrestrial gamma radiation data over a network of 24 flight lines were collected. The data acquisition procedure was designed to accumulate and store spectral radiation data along a flight line from which estimates of soil moisture could be computed. Ground-based soil moisture measurements were used to make a one-time calibration of the natural terrestrial radioisotope signal over the flight line network. A time-series of airborne soil moisture measurements (to a depth of 20 cm) was compared to an extensive, independent data set of ground-based soil moisture measurements. Estimates for flight line segments were found to have an average RMS error of approximately 2.5 % soil moisture (Peck et al., 1990).

    Access & Use Information

    Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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    Dates

    Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
    Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from NASA Data.json

    Other Data Resources

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
    Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025
    Publisher ORNL_DAAC
    Maintainer
    Identifier 10.3334/ORNLDAAC/37
    Data Last Modified 2025-09-11
    Category Earth Science
    Public Access Level public
    Bureau Code 026:00
    Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
    Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
    Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
    Harvest Object Id 4a02a45e-b488-46dd-8380-6a8467157b9e
    Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
    Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
    Homepage URL https://search.earthdata.nasa.gov/search?q=fife_soilmstr_peck_gam_37&ac=true
    Old Spatial {"WestBoundingCoordinate":-96.62,"NorthBoundingCoordinate":39.12,"EastBoundingCoordinate":-96.48,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":38.97},"CARTESIAN"
    Program Code 026:000
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash 4d5c7331eb1ee0be5279f98eabd23b4eec0990fa261874b2f6d1f530ddf13278
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial
    Temporal 1987-06-03/1987-06-03

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