Source web page: http://www.globalgeochemicalbaselines.eu/content/162/black-soil-project-manual-/ SYNOPSIS The aims of the International Union of Geological Sciences Commission on Global Geochemical Baselines are: • To provide high-quality geochemical baseline data for the terrestrial part of our home planet Earth; • To establish a Geochemical Reference Network for levelling data sets of existing regional geochemical projects, and • To provide reference samples and sites for future monitoring of the chemical state of the World’s terrestrial surface. Hence, the generated geochemical data must be of high quality, integrity and consistency. Sampling of Black Soil (chernozems), sensu stricto, is not included in the programme of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) Commission on Global Geochemical Baselines, because it is an agricultural soil impacted by human activities. However, it is an important agricultural soil, and as is considered to be among some of the most productive soil types in the World, it should quite rightly be studied separately from other agricultural soil types. The aim of the Global Black Soil Critical Zone Geo-ecological Survey (BASGES) is to study, in a holistic approach, the serious degradation problems that Black Soil types are facing all over the world because of several decades of intensive cultivation. Their present chemical state shall be studied by following the principles of the IUGS Commission on Global Geochemical Baselines for producing an internally consistent high-quality geochemical database. The requirements are to use standardised sampling and sample preparation methods, and all samples must be analysed in the same laboratory for the same suite of determinands/parameters, following a strict quality control protocol. The present manual contains comprehensive instructions for sample site selection, sample collection and preparation, recommendations for the preparation of project reference samples, laboratory analysis, quality control procedures that should be implemented, checking the quality of analytical data, required supporting information for interpretation of geochemical data, and need for the establishment of site-specific guideline values for Black Soil in the different regions of its occurrence. The URL of the pdf file is: https://www.globalgeochemicalbaselines.eu/datafiles/file/IUGS_Manual_of_Standard-Geochemical-Methods_for_the_Global-Black-Soil-Project.pdf IUGS APPROVAL FOR PUBLICATION The Executive Committee of the International Union of Geological Sciences approved the publication of the “International Union of Geological Sciences Manual of Standard Geochemical Methods for the Global Black Soil Project” at its 74th meeting in Busan of South Korea on the 17th of January 2020. The Executive Committee members Qiuming Cheng (President), Kristine Asch (Vice President), William Cavazza (Vice President), Stanley C. Finney (Secretary-General), Hiroshi Kitazato (Treasurer), Roland Oberhänsli (Past President), Ben Mapani (Councillor), Edmund Nickless (Councillor), Silvia Peppoloni (Councillor) and Claudia Mora (Councillor) are thanked for approving the publication of this manual. Supplementary material For planning the sampling campaign of the Global Black Soil regions, according to the specifications of the IUGS Commission on Global Geochemical Baselines, the following files should be downloaded: Google Earth kml and kmz files of the Global Black Soil regions: World_Black_soil_regions.zip Microsoft Excel Workbook of Global or Geochemical Terrestrial Network (GTN) of 7356 grid cells of 160x160 km Google Earth *.kml file of Geochemical Terrestrial Network of 7356 grid cells of 160x160 km (zip file) Microsoft Excel Workbook of 5 randomly selected points in each GTN grid cell of 160x160 km (version 1) Google Earth *.kml file of 5 randomly selected points in each GTN grid cell of 160x160 km (version 1 - zip file) The software programs mentioned in the Manual, i.e., DUPREPPLOT, PDLPRECIS and ROBCOOP5 (now ROBCOOP4A) are available for downloading from the Software Programs web page.

CITATION: Demetriades, A., Dai, H., Liu, K., Savin, I., Birke, M., Johnson, C.C., Argyraki, A. (Editors), 2020. International Union of Geological Sciences Manual of Standard Geochemical Methods for the Global Black Soil Project. International Union of Geological Sciences, Commission on Global Geochemical Baselines, Special Publication No. 1, Athens, Hellas, 107 pp., https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7267967.