LAND & SOIL USES

1. LAND & SOIL USES Sydney Rasp and Jessie Dressler Seneca Valley Senior High School

2. Soil Surveys • Soils are grouped by similar properties and behaviors • Named for a town, landmark or feature • Example: Titusville Series • Has a description of each soil series • Each description has information about that series and a description of the soil profile

3. Soil Survey Map Index • Every soil survey has a map index of the listed county • Has the location of major towns, state highways and some country roads

4. The Soil Map • Aerial photograph • Also shows main land types and roads • Town names and municipal boundaries are shown to pinpoint the exact location of a property • Have boundaries of soil series

5. Types of Butler Co. Soil Series • Hazleton Channery Loam • Hazleton Loam • Hazleton and Gilpin Soils • Monongahela Silt Loam • Philo Loam • Pits, Sand and gravel • Pope Loam • Riverhead Sandy Loam • Tilsit Silt Loam • Titusville Silt Loam • Titusville and Riverhead Soils • Udorthents, Acid Material, Gently Sloping • Udorthents, Acid Material, Moderately Steep • Udorthents, Acid Material, Very Steep • Udorthents, Calcareous Material, Moderately Steep • Udorthents, Calcareous Material, Very Steep • Urban land- Ernest Complex • Urban land- Gilpin Complex • Vandergrift- Cavode Silt Loams • Wharton Silt Loam • Wheeling Silt Loam • Andover Loam • Arents-Urban Land Complex • Atkins Silt Loam • Braceville Loam • Brinkerton Silt Loam • Buchanan Loam • Canadice Silty Clay Loam • Caneadea Silt Loam • Cavode Silt Loam • Clymer Loam • Cookport Loam • Dumps, Industrial Waste • Dumps, Mines • Ernest Silt Loam • Fluvaquents, Coal Overwash • Fredon Loam • Frenchtown Silt Loam • Gilpin Silt Loam • Gilpin Channery Silt Loam • Gilpin-Upshur Complex • Gilpin-Weikert Channery Silt Loam • Gilpin-Wharton Silt Loam • Gilpin-Wharton Complex • Gresham Silt Loam

6. Example:

7. Soil Properties • There are other additional information within the engineering properties and other charts • All of these properties are needed when planning development of a piece of land • Also contains information on limitations for septic tanks, basements and roadways • It allows one to determine: • Depth to seasonal high water tables • Depths to bedrock • Land use limiting factors

8. Vocabulary! • Alluvial Fan- low outspread mass of soil and/or rock deposited by a stream shaped like an open fan (triangle) or cone. Commonly found at the mouth of streams where they enter a larger valley. • Bench- a nearly level to gently sloping platform generally a bedrock controlled erosional surface on a mountainside or hillside.

9. Vocabulary! • Bog- A waterlogged swampy area consisting of mostly organic material, such as mosses, sphagnum, sedges and woody materials. • Colluvium- soil material that has accumulated at a footslope of a ridge or mountain side to due to mass soil movement or landslide. • Depression- a relatively sunken part of the Earth’s surface. A low lying area surrounded by higher ground, such as a sinkhole.

10. Vocabulary! • Drainageway- a general term used to describe a long narrow water course that at sometime has concentrated water flow, but lacks a channel or has a small defined channel. Water flow intermittent. • Drift(glacial)- a general term applied to all material transported and deposited by glacial ice. The term applies to deposits that no longer contains glaciers • Flood Plain- a near plain that boarders a stream and is subject to flooding. Soil material has been deposited by stream overflow and deposition.

11. Vocabulary! • Footslope- a gentle to moderate sloping area at the base of a side slope or mountain slope . • Head slope- a concave surface at the end of a drainageway • Interfluve- a broad upland area or ridge top between two valleys or waterways that sheds water into those valleys or water ways

12. Vocabulary! • Karst- topography with sink holes and under ground drainage formed in limestone, general has few if any streams except those formed by large springs. • Local Alluvium- soil deposited in drainage ways and on footslopes by sheet, rill, and gully erosion of adjacent and nearby slopes created by storm runoff rather than by overflowing streams • Loess- soil material transported and deposited by wind and predominately of silt size

13. Vocabulary! • Mountain- the natural land rising more than 1000ft above the low lands • Mountain slope- the side slope of a mountain between summit and the foot • Nose slope- the projecting end of a interfluve generally convex contours up and down slope • Piedmont- in the United States the piedmont is a low plateau extending from New Jersey thru Pennsylvania to Alabama and lying east of the Appalachian

14. Vocabulary! • Plateau- a relatively large flat area at high elevations near the summit and general 330ft above adjacent low lying areas • Residuum- unconsolidated weathered or partly weathered soil material that accumulates in place by disintegration of bedrock • Side Slope- a slope between a drainage way and summit or interfluve • Sinkhole- a closed depression formed in limestone by solution of the bedrock and formed by the collapse of the overlying soil

15. Vocabulary! • Stream Terrace- A platform in a stream valley parallel to the stream representing an abandoned flood plain at higher elevation than current day flood plans • Summit- the topographically highest position with a plain to convex nearly level to the sloping surface • Upland- a general term for higher ground in contrast to valley, flood plain, or other low lying ground • Valley- an elongated relatively large external drained depression of the Earth primarily formed between mountains by erosion or glacial activity

16. Soil Structure • The structure is a naturally occurring arrangement of soil particles in the aggregated that result from the soil forming process • The structure is described in three terms • Grade • Size • Shape

17. Soil Structure: Grade • Structureless- no units observable in a hand sample or close observation • Sand is an example “structureless single grain” soil where the individual grains area loose and don’t form aggregates • “Structureless massive” is a continuous layers of soil that do not show aggregates in place or in a hand sample • Dense glacial till and the interior of some fragipans are massive single unit showing no development

18. Soil Structure: Grade cont. • Weak- structural units are barely observable in place or in hand sample • Moderate- units are well formed and evident in place or in a hand sample • Strong- units are distinct and separate easily when disturbed

19. Soil Structure: Size

20. Soil Structure: Shape • Granular- the individual unites are approximately spherical or polyhedral and are curved or very irregular faces, common in surface horizons • Prismatic- units are elongated vertically with flat to rounded vertical surfaces, tops are general flat, common structure of fragipans • Subangular blocky- unites are somewhat rounded block like or with flat to slightly rounded polyhedral surfaces, common in subsurface horizons • Angular blocky- units are block like with sharp edges, common in heavy textured subsurface horizons • Platy- the units are flat and plate like and usual oriented horizontally, common in compacted surfaces and plough pans

21. Soil Texture Pyramid

23. Formation of Soils • Soil begins with solid rock • Forces of nature have turned rock into soils • Weathering- the natural process where rock is broken into smaller pieces • Heat and water help with the weathering process

24. Composition of Soil • Made of 4 substances • 45% mineral particles • 5% organic matter • 50% air and water

25. Soil Profile • Arrangement and properties of the various soil layers • Layers are: • Top soil- top layer, most nutrient rich • Sub soil- little or no organic matter is present • Parent material- lower layer from which the top and sub soils have developed

26. Soil Classification • Soils are grouped according to: • agronomic use- ex: good wheat soil, poor corn soil • Color- ex: black soil, red soil • Organic Matter Content- ex: mineral soil, muck soil • Texture- ex: sandy, loam • Moisture Condition- ex: wet soil, dry soil

27. Soil Management • There are 4 types: • Erosion • Conservation • Compaction • Drainage

28. Erosion • Removal of soil material by wind or water moving over the land • Natural process and most hills and valleys are the product of water • 2 different types: • Sheetand rill- removal of top soil from a field; soil washes from field in thin layers or sheets from small channels or rills • Gully- deep ditches cut by flowing water

29. Conservation • Preventing or stopping erosion • Best way to control erosion is to keep the soil covered • Done with living plants, or mulch of dead plant residue such as crop residue or dead leaves • Preparing the land for planting in a way that leaves crop residue on the soil surface is called conservation tillage

30. Compaction • Current concern about soil compaction is in the top layer (plow layer) and in the sub soil because of damage to soil structure by soil compaction • Damage is caused by • Larger and heavier farm equipment • Increased specialization in crop production • Increased traffic and tillage necessary for application and incorporation of fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides • Earlier seed bed preparation and planting when soils are often wet and susceptible to compaction

31. Water Relations • Size, shape and arrangement of the soil particles and pores determine the ability of a soil to retain water • Larger pores conduct more water more rapidly than smaller pores