Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

This site is currently in beta, and your feedback is helping shape its ongoing development.

Cinder field subsurface temperature and relative humidity profiles at Sunset Crater National Monument, Arizona, March 09, 2021 to May 26, 2022: U.S. Geological Survey data release

Published by U.S. Geological Survey | Department of the Interior | Metadata Last Checked: January 27, 2026 | Last Modified: 2023-05-24T00:00:00Z
The vadose zone (unsaturated zone) in a soil is of particular interest because it is broadly applicable to desert soils, which are seldom saturated and usually dry. In the absence of strong geothermal heating, the near-surface soil temperature profile is expected to exhibit maximum variation (for a given diurnal period) at the surface, with the diurnal variations becoming successively damped with depth. The temperature at a given depth is the result of diffusive heat transport vertically within the soil column. Water vapor also is expected to be transported via diffusion through the soil column [1]. We have selected a small cinder field in Sunset Crater National Monument, Arizona (SUCR) and deployed temperature and relative humidity sensors at 5 different depths (1, 6, 12, 24, and 48 cm) to capture diurnal temperature and humidity variations. [1] Hillel, D., (1980) Fundamentals of Soil Physics Data presented here span from March 09, 2021 to August 10, 2022.

data.gov

An official website of the GSA's Technology Transformation Services

Looking for U.S. government information and services?
Visit USA.gov