Soils inferences Following are the prompts for writing inferences for your field work. Write the inferences in your yellow field notebook (and don’t forget to put an entry in the table of contents!)

Soil inferences Soil formation: “The parent material for this site is (lacustrine, eolian, loess, alluvial, collovial, glacial?) in origin. The PM was deposited approx. (how many?) thousand years ago.” “This area has a Marine West Coast climate (MWC) with (high or low?) average annual temperatures and (high or low?) precipitation values. These factors indicate (high or low?) accumulation of organic material (OM.)” “Biota. The soil has developed under a mixed (coniferous or deciduous) forest. The forest density (cover) in the area is approx. (? %)” {Use Google Earth to estimate.} “This area was logged within the last 100 years.”

Soil inferences 2 Soil Taxonomy: “The soil in test pit (flag #) would be classified as a (?) because it…..” {list evidence from your field observations- BUT BEWARE! Do not cite evidence that you don’t have recorded in your field notebook under “observations.”} Soil Color Interpretation: “The soil has a mottle chroma of (?) and a matrix chroma of (?), we therefore interpret the drainage class of the soil to be (?) The high chroma red/brown colors in the B horizon show….(?)”

Soil inferences 3 Comparison data : “Existing geotechnical data classified the texture of the location most commonly as (? and ?) Test pit (flag #) had the texture of….(?+?+?)” {specify the letter of the soil horizon as appropriate, for example “the B horizon has a sandy-loam texture.} Conclusions: “We would classify the soil of test pit (flag#) as a (mollisol/inceptisol/gelisol etc.) because……(list reasons.) We infer that the most pronounced chemical process happening in this soil is (oxidation, hydrolysis, dissolution) because….. We also see evidence of (ox,hyd,dissol) in the (horizon letter(s) because we see…”