About this project
The soil thin section collection of Ghent University (Laboratory for Mineralogy and Petrology, Department of Geology) contains more than 23 000 thin sections, for soils of various types, sampled in various parts of the world. About a third of the collection represents soils from Africa, particularly from the DR Congo and Rwanda. Soils from Europe, mainly from Belgium, account for another third.
The oldest samples for which thin sections were prepared were collected by the Henri de Saeger expedition to the Garamba National Park (DR Congo), between 1949 and 1952 (Denisoff, 1956), and by Jacques Laruelle in the Akagera National Park (Rwanda) and the Virunga National Park (DR Congo), in 1958-1959.
The collection was initially organized and cataloged by Georges Stoops, whose teaching at the International Training Centre for Post-Graduate Soil Scientists of Ghent University (ITC-Ghent), from 1968 to 2002, included courses on micropedology. Many of the thin sections were prepared for studies by Georges Stoops and coworkers as contributions to soil-related research projects or to MSc or PhD research by ITC-Ghent students (1968-2017).
After 2004, a large set of thin sections, that were made for mainly archaeopedological research conducted by Roger Langohr and coworkers, was added to the collection.
In addition to the main collection, a small collection of about 300 thin sections of Belgian soils is available (IWO collection). They were prepared for samples collected during the soil survey of Belgium, carried out from the 1950s to 1970s to prepare the soil map of Belgium (Maréchal and Tavernier, 1974). Part of this collection has been studied by Laruelle (1958).
Since 2002, Vera Marcelino has been in charge of organizing the collection, including compilation of data for building the current database. New thin sections and new data are still regulary being added to the collection and the database. Kurt Blom is responsible for designing the interface allowing on-line access.
- Denisoff, I., 1956. Les sols du Park National de la Garamba. I. Caractères et analyses. In de Saeger, H. 'Exploration du Parc national de la Garamba'. Institut des parcs nationaux du Congo belge', fasc. 2, 54 p.
- Laruelle, J., 1958. Bijdrage tot de kennis van de mikromorfologie der Belgische bodems. PhD. Thesis. Ghent University, Belgium, 138 p.
- Laruelle, J., 1958. Micromorphologie des sols de la Belgique. Pedologie 8, 79-102.
- Maréchal, R., Tavernier, R., 1974. Bodemkunde. Commentaar bij kaartbladen 11A en 11B van de Nationale Atlas van België (Pedology. Comments to the sheets 11A and 11B of the National Atlas of Belgium). National Committee for Geography, Brussels (in Dutch).