Wednesday, November 7, 2007
302-1
Proposed Design of a Field Guide to the Soil Series of the United States.
Soil Series, the most detailed category of soil classification in the USDA Soil Taxonomy, are commonly recognized and understood by agriculturalists with knowledge of their land. The poster presentation introduces the concept and proposed design of a “Field Guide to Soil Series” which will provide a concise information source for laypersons, educators, students, and technical specialists. The guide emphasizes field study for identifying Soil Series and other taxa primarily from soil geographic extent and field-based soil morphological and landscape data. The concept of a field guide is analogous in some aspects to the famous Petersons’™ Field Guides. Sources of information from the Internet would include the Official Soil Series Descriptions (OSDs), National Soil Classification Database, Field Book for Describing and Sampling Soils, and the Soil Series Extent Mapping Tool. Soil landscape relationships are modeled using various conceptual diagrams such as hillslope profiles, catenas, 3-D visualization and multivariate graphics. Photographs of representative soil profiles (where available) and associated landscapes for each Soil Series illustrate key morphological criteria for distinguishing the soils. The evolution of each Soil Series from parent to progeny should be documented to record conceptual changes in series’ criteria with time.
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