An 87-year-old jar of earth has been re-discovered in a shipping container at the back of CSIRO – a time capsule if you like – during an inventory of 19,000 unidentified historic soil samples.

This little piece of the Simpson Desert (ironically named after the inventor of a washing machine) was collected during a scientific camel-led expedition, which remarkably ended up on YouTube.

The person who unearthed this long-lost jar of soil (don’t call it dirt) is Georgia Reed, manager of the Australian National Soil Archive.

“I was going through the shipping containers out the back and I knew there were historic samples but we didn’t have a complete inventory of what’s there,” Georgia said.

“I’ve got physical data cards with just sample numbers and I was looking through the images and saw the Simpson Desert. So I had a look and I actually found some matching samples, then I did more research online and found the original publication and a map.”

Since 1939, this jar or soil has sat in storage, a tangible relic of the first scientific examination of the Simpson Desert.

The expedition, led by Dr Cecil Thomas Madigan, crossed the desert in 25 days.

“It’s a really famous expedition and it’s contributed to our understanding of the Simpson Desert,” Georgia said.

“The samples have only just been archived so that means they’re now available and a researcher can ask for a loan of a sub-sample and reanalyse those soil samples and compare them to current soil samples from that area. It would be a really interesting case study.”

This old jar of earth isn’t the only surprise in the National Soil Archive – it also holds a 100-year-old soil sample from 1926, a pure and unpolluted piece of South Australian soil.

“That’s pre-everything, pre-nuclear testing, pesticides, herbicides, before a lot of urbanisation and even before micro-plastics were introduced,” Georgia said.

“We’re thinking of putting a monitoring site where the 1924 samples were collected from, so there’s potential to go back to the same sites and then compare what’s changed over time.”

Many Canberrans would probably not be aware that we have more than 100,000 archived specimens collected from 23,000 sites across Australia.

And there’s still 19,000 more historic specimens in the backyard yet to be identified (volunteers are transcribing data cards as you read this).

“It will take a long time but once that’s all done, we have a complete inventory of what we’ve got in those shipping containers,” Georgia said. “And who knows what other hidden samples are out there.”

Even forensic services are tapping into the Australian National Soil Archive for possible investigations.

“Data from samples in our archive have been used to develop a forensic framework of Australia soils,” Georgia said.  “Archived soil samples could potentially be tested and used to match soil from a boot or tyre to a geographic location.”

Take a virtual tour of the Australian National Soil Archive: youtube.com/watch?v=2gSmzBfhO3Q