The project RAISIN represents a core project of the Focus Area Group PASTSOILS. One of the major goals of the Focus Area Group will be achieved through RAISIN: Rates of soil forming processes in different climates, obtained from soils and paleosols in settings where climatic conditions and duration of soil development are known, will be assessed and documented. Thus, the project will provide a solid base for future interpretation of paleosols in the frame of palaeo-environmental reconstructions. Numerous data on soil development with time, many of them based on soil chronosequence studies in various regions, have been published in the past decades. The main aim of the project is hence to bring together scientists working on rates of soil-forming processes in different regions of the world to share and discuss their results, review and compare published data and finally produce a document representing the current state of knowledge on soil formation rates in different climates. The outcome of the project will be published in a special issue of Quaternary International to make it available to the scientific public. Thus, a common standard for interpreting paleosols in soil-sediment successions in terms of duration and environmental conditions of soil development will be created. Moreover, gaps in our current knowledge will be identified in the process of reviewing existing data in the frame of the project. This will stimulate future research and possibly lead to collaborative projects aiming on closing the identified gaps step by step.
The data was collected in conjunction with the HILLSCAPE project (see hillscape.ch for details). The project made use of two proglacial chronosequences located at Klausen Pass (Griess Glacier) and Susten Pass (Stein Glacier) in central Switzerland. Each of the chronosequences consisted of four moraines. The moraines of the Stein Glacier foreland had estimated terrain ages of 30a (a = years), 160a, 3ka (ka = thousands of years), and 10ka. The moraines of the Griess Glacier foreland had estimated terrain ages of 110a, 160a, 4.9ka, and 13.5ka. We conducted vegetation surveys on 10 plots per moraine and measured the coverage of every occurring species by visual estimation. In addition, we measured plant functional traits (SLA = specific leaf area, LDMC = leaf dry matter content) from individuals of the same plots. Further trait data on canopy height, seed mass, seed dispersal type, and woodiness were obtained from online plant trait databases. The stored dataset includes two files, one containing the species and the coverages per plot and one containing the species and their functional plant traits.