PlanetGSD 1.0: a cross-planetary grain-size distribution dataset from the Earth, the Moon, and the Mars
Abstract. Comparative studies of surface processes across planetary bodies are hindered by the lack of consistently parameterized, openly accessible soil data, especially the grain-size distributions (GSDs) data. Here we present PlanetGSD 1.0, the first standardized and unified cross-planetary GSD database. It comprises 6527 measurements from Earth (4419 samples, 20 geomorphic settings), the Moon (379 samples, 8 missions), and Mars (1729 rover-derived estimates, 4 landing areas), covering seven orders of magnitude in grain size (0.0001–600 mm). The textural fractions have been transferred into a unique parameter set (μ, Dc, n) derived from the unified GSD (UGSD) function, accompanied by quality metrics, georeferenced metadata, site-level statistics, and open-source analysis codes. Technical validation confirms high fitting quality across all samples (97.8 % with R2>0.95) and robust inter-operator reproducibility for Martian image-derived measurements (coefficient of variation < 8.3 % for key parameters). The complete dataset is openly available on Figshare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.32362083, Zhang, 2026a) under the CC BY 4.0 license. PlanetGSD 1.0 enables robust cross-planetary comparison of regolith properties, benchmarking of simulants, and data-driven landing site assessment, establishing a foundational resource for planetary science.
Authors
- Yong Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5680-3131)
- Jun Zhang
Institutions
- Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment (CN)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Earth system science data
- Published
- 2026-07-16
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-4983-2026
- Primary Topic
- Planetary Science and Exploration
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Youth Science Foundation
- National Outstanding Youth Science Fund Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment
- National Key Research and Development Program of China