Documentation for the Major Ecosystem Complexes (Olson Vegetation)

The Olson Vegetation data set represents the world's Major Ecosystem Complexes ranked by the amounts of carbon in live vegetation. It is available here.

It was compiled by Jerry Olson, J. Watts and L. Allison at the Environmental Sciences Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, USA. The data set has a one-half degree by one-half degree latitude/ longitude resolution and a total of 44 land ecosystem classes. It was compiled from patterns of pre-agricultural vegetation, modern aerial surveys and inten- sive biomass data from research sites. The reference for this data set is "Olson, J. S., J. A. Watts and L. J. Allison, 1983. Carbon in Live Vegetation of Major World Ecosystems, Report ORNL-5862, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA."

This is taken from the original USGS documentation. Documentation from CDIAC, Oak Ridge National Laboratory can be found here.