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Vertisols of the world A more detailed map of the global distribution of Vertisols. A vertisol is a Soil Order in the USDA soil taxonomy [1] and a Reference Soil Group in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB). [2] It is also defined in many other soil classification systems. In the Australian Soil Classification it is called ...
Expansive clay, also called expansive soil, is a clay soil prone to large volume changes (swelling and shrinking) directly related to changes in water content. [1] Soils with a high content of expansive minerals can form deep cracks in drier seasons or years; such soils are called vertisols.
A soil family category is a group of soils within a subgroup and describes the physical and chemical properties which affect the response of soil to agricultural management and engineering applications. The principal characteristics used to differentiate soil families include texture, mineralogy, pH, permeability, structure, consistency, the ...
Soils with this shrink-swell capacity fall under the soil order of Vertisols. [6] As these soils dry, deep cracks can form on the surface, which then allows water to penetrate to deeper levels of the soil. [7] This can cause the swelling of these soils to become cyclical, with periods of both shrinking and swelling.
Haplic Planosol profile near Abiy Addi in Ethiopia Distribution of Planosols Soil profile of a Eutric Planosol. A Planosol in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources [1] is a soil with a light-coloured, coarse-textured, surface horizon that shows signs of periodic water stagnation and abruptly overlies a dense, slowly permeable subsoil with significantly more clay than the surface horizon.
Because of the diversity of their properties, suborders of entisols form individual Reference Soil Groups in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB): psamments correlate with arenosols, and fluvents with fluvisols. Many orthents belong to regosols or leptosols. Most wassents and aquic subgroups of other suborders belong to the ...
Cation-exchange capacity (CEC) is a measure of how many cations can be retained on soil particle surfaces. [1] Negative charges on the surfaces of soil particles bind positively-charged atoms or molecules (cations), but allow these to exchange with other positively charged particles in the surrounding soil water. [2]
Cross section showing the water table varying with surface topography as well as a perched water table The vadose zone (from the Latin word for "shallow"), also termed the unsaturated zone , is the part of Earth between the land surface and the top of the phreatic zone , the position at which the groundwater (the water in the soil's pores) is ...