Comparison of Munsell Soil Color Charts and the GLOBE Soil Color Book

Color is a commonly measured morphological property determined during field investigations of soils. Consequently, a soil color book is among the equipment carried by almost every field soil scientist. Our objective was to determine if there was a significant difference between the color representations of two color references: the Munsell Soil Color Charts and the GLOBE Soil Color Book. Using 10 new copies of each brand of book, Munsell hue, value, and chroma were measured for all color chips. Standard thresholds for soil color contrast (faint, distinct, prominent) were used to assess if the measured color differed from the reported color of each chip. Of 4020 measurements, only 28 had a non-faint contrast. Statistically, there was mild evidence to suggest a difference between color representations of the two brands, but this was attributable to discrepancies for a single chip. For all other chips, there was no significant difference between the brands.