In the picture: Dr Daniel Evans and GT5000 Terra gas analyser in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Pictures courtesy of Dr Daniel Evans and research team.

Using the Gasmet GT5000 Terra portable FTIR gas analyser, researchers measure multiple soil gas fluxes simultaneously in remote glacier forefields in the Canadian Rocky Mountains to investigate how ancient carbon stored in rocks and sediments behaves during the earliest stages of soil formation.

The following case story is provided by our customer Dr Daniel Evans, Senior Lecturer in Soil Formation and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at Cranfield University:

There are easier ways to study soil than carrying a gas analyser through a swamp.

I had plenty of time to reflect on this in August, as we made our way through the mountains of British Columbia. With a rucksack on my back and a Gasmet analyser strapped to my front, I was carrying around 30 kilograms.

We knew the journey would be hard work. What we hadn’t quite appreciated was how much of it would involve hauling ourselves up steep forested banks, crossing rivers and pushing through an overgrown trail, all while keeping an eye out for bears. At times, calling it a “hike” felt rather generous. Four and a half hours in, the final kilometre seemed to go on forever. I was very grateful when a colleague offered to take the analyser for the last stretch.

(And yes, I did see a bear on the way back, although it didn’t seem particularly interested in the Gasmet analyser)

We had come a long way to investigate the beginnings of soil. Fortunately, there was plenty waiting for us.

Why go all that way for soil?

Our destination was a glacier forefield in the Cariboo Mountains. I had joined Diogo Spinola and colleagues from the University of Northern British Columbia, alongside researchers from Dartmouth College (USA) and Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). We were interested in what happens to the rocks and sediments left behind as a glacier retreats, particularly the carbon they contain.

When we think about organic carbon entering a soil, we usually start with plants. We picture roots growing, leaves falling, and organisms getting to work on all that material. But there is another possible source, already there before the first leaf falls.

Some rocks contain organic carbon inherited from ancient organic matter. We call this petrogenic organic carbon, although “rock-derived organic carbon” is rather easier to say. So, while the soil forming in front of us might be very young, some of its carbon could be very old indeed.

The question is what happens to it. Does it remain in the developing soil? Can microorganisms make use of it, releasing some back to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide? Could it help support those first communities before vegetation becomes established?

These questions sit within my UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, Today’s Carbon in Tomorrow’s Soils. I’m interested in how geological materials become soil, and what that transformation means for carbon. Here was an opportunity to get right up close to the process, on ground that had, until relatively recently, been beneath the ice.

Not exactly home comforts

Before any of this, of course, we had to get the equipment ready. Finding nitrogen for the analyser’s background measurements occupied two or three days of enquiries before we eventually tracked some down. There is a fair amount of fieldwork that happens nowhere near the field.

Our home in the mountains was a hut with foam mattresses, no running water and a small solar panel. We filtered glacial meltwater for drinking and boiled water for tea and meals. The nights were cold. It was somewhere to sleep and shelter, rather than somewhere to spread out and recharge all your equipment.

That last point became important. I had spent considerable time before the trip thinking about batteries for the analyser. As it turned out, we had enough power for that. What I couldn’t recharge from the hut’s solar supply was the tablet used to operate it.

After a long day of measurements, I had enough charge left for a short session beside the glacier the following morning. I watched the percentage fall while trying to squeeze in a few more readings. At around 4%, the tablet switched off.

I then had to wait until we were back at the hotel that evening to find out whether the data had survived. Thankfully, everything had been saved as we went. We hadn’t lost the readings, but we had reached the end of our measuring time.

Next time, the tablet’s charging arrangements will receive just as much attention as the analyser’s!

Getting a reading

At the site, we worked along a chronosequence: surfaces exposed by the retreating glacier at different times. This allowed us to compare recently exposed material with soils that had been developing for centuries, without having to wait centuries ourselves.

There was plenty going on. Colleagues were collecting soil and rock samples, taking tree cores and drilling rock for cosmogenic nuclide dating to help establish when the glacier had retreated. I followed the soil sampling team with the Gasmet, measuring gas exchange at points along the sequence.

For my measurements, I connected the portable Gasmet FTIR analyser to a chamber placed over the ground. By following changes in gas concentrations inside the chamber, we can work towards calculating how quickly gases are being released or taken up.

First, though, you need to get the chamber collar into the ground.

I spent rather more time on this than I had anticipated. These were compact, gravelly, stony materials, and finding somewhere to insert a collar properly was a challenge. We had lightweight, 3D-printed collars, which I was extremely pleased about during the journey. Once at the site, however, we could see where a design better suited to this particular ground would help.

The uneven surface also meant that the volume of air enclosed beneath the chamber varied between placements. Photographs and measurements helped record those differences.

This was a reconnaissance trip, and learning what needed changing was part of the work. Some of that learning involved a surprising amount of effort to install a small ring in the ground.

The temperatures surprised me as well. After a cold night in the hut, we recorded soil temperatures of around 36°C during the day. Having a glacier nearby certainly doesn’t mean the ground stays cold. It also means we need to be careful when comparing measurements: a difference between two sites might reflect the conditions when we measured them, rather than simply how old their soils were.

So, what did we see?

Once everything was in place, watching the readings come through was encouraging. The youngest surfaces generally produced small changes in gas concentration. An older comparison soil, estimated to be around 500 years old, gave a much larger response. Even beside the glacier, on recently exposed material, there was a signal.

That was exciting to see after all the effort of getting there. There was something to investigate, even on ground where there appeared to be very little happening.

Of course, a carbon dioxide reading doesn’t tell us where the carbon came from. We can’t assume it came from the rock simply because there were few plants around. That will require additional evidence, including approaches such as radiocarbon analysis to help distinguish carbon sources. These are preliminary observations from a pilot study, and there is still work to do on the measurements themselves.

But this is the part I keep coming back to: what are those first organisms doing? Are they making use of carbon inherited from the rocks? And are they simply finding places to live in the weathered material, or actively helping to create the structure of a soil?

I find that last question particularly fascinating. We are used to thinking about the life in soil. Here, we can investigate how life might help a soil come into being.

Already thinking about going back

We came home tired, with samples, gas measurements, plenty of photographs and a much better idea of how to approach the next campaign. Longer measurement periods, collars designed for these materials and a more suitable power supply are all on the list. We have also discussed getting equipment to the site by helicopter. After carrying it in ourselves, that idea has considerable appeal!

There is plenty more to understand. As vegetation establishes, how does the contribution of ancient carbon change? How much stays in the soil, and how much is lost? It matters because carbon inherited from rock is not the same as carbon newly drawn down from the atmosphere, even when both end up in the same handful of soil.

For all the effort of the journey, I’m keen to return. It is a remarkable place to work, and we have only begun to investigate it. I’ll be pleased to see the glacier again, but I suspect I’ll spend much of the time as I did on this trip: looking down at the ground it has left behind.

Join me for the webinar

I’ll be sharing more photographs and stories from the trip, along with our research questions and the practical lessons from measuring gases in this environment, in “After the Ice: Exploring Soil Flux Measurements in Newly Exposed Glacial Landscapes”, alongside Gasmet’s Ola Szymon.

The free webinar takes place on Wednesday 4 November 2026, from 2–3 pm UK time / 4–5 pm Helsinki time. No mountain hiking required.

 

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​Interested in improving the accuracy of soil greenhouse gas measurements? Download our free guide covering common sources of uncertainty and best practices for chamber-based flux measurements.

GT5000 Terra – Gasmet solution for natural ecosystem research Natural ecosystem research often takes place in remote and challenging environments. Gasmet’s portable FTIR analyzers are specifically designed to tackle these challenges effectively.  GT5000 Terra can measure all gases of your interest simultaneously, saving you time and money. Equipped with wireless communication, you can get your measurement results in real-time on your laptop or tablet. Portability makes it especially effective on field conditions. Take a look at the GT5000 Terra