Help With Soil Profile

[DanClimbsTrees]

I'd like to identify the three distinct horizons in the profile below. I know that the top horizon is the O/A but would the dark horizon in the middle be the Eluvial layer (E horizon) and the more clayey one below be the B horizon?

 

Depth from top to bottom is 800mm

 

Thank you people of ArbTalk

[Tommywommy]

Subsoil ( bottom layer ) looks like what I would marl clay. Middle section looks like a good fire or a lot of compacted organic matter. Very hard to tell whether silt, sand or clay without handling it. Is this in a domestic garden or an agricultural field ?

[DanClimbsTrees]

Subsoil ( bottom layer ) looks like what I would marl clay. Middle section looks like a good fire or a lot of compacted organic matter. Very hard to tell whether silt, sand or clay without handling it. Is this in a domestic garden or an agricultural field ?

 

Tommy, thanks for your reply. It's in a domestic garden so I think you may be bang on with the compacted organic matter as there could well have been a veg patch there many moons ago!

 

Cheers

[Arbtech Tree Services]

Coursework for a level 2 ?

[DanClimbsTrees]

Coursework for a level 2 ?

 

Yep. God, my Friday nights are fun!

[sloth]

http://passel.unl.edu/pages/informationmodule.php?idinformationmodule=1130447025&topicorder=4

 

This web page may be of interest to you...

[DanClimbsTrees]

Plant and Soil Sciences eLibrary

 

This web page may be of interest to you...

 

Cheers Sloth, I had a read through and got through the questions at the end. I now understand why the dark layer is unlikely to be an E horizon.

[sloth]

No worries, I remember trudging through soul science - I dropped out of a-level geology for a reason! Now I find it kind of interesting once you get past the basics. There's tgood little guide, aidgap I think, which is handy to have. Let me check...

 

 

 

 

...yep. This one

http://www.britishwildlifegifts.co.uk/gifts-by-type/educational-wildlife-gifts/uk-wildlife-field-guides/FSC-AIDGAP-Soil-identification-earth?sort=rating&order=DESC#.VOfgn5GnySw

[Tommywommy]

I soil sample ag fields all day but the science and terms we are taught rarely relate to real life situations and terms / language used on farm. Our place at home is on upper Lias clay bed subsoil, the only people who would use that are land agents and enviroment agency boffins. We call it marl clay. If you want to read an interesting book on soil read "dirt, the erosion of civilisations " you will never look at soil in the same way again !

[DanClimbsTrees]

Cheers for the book recommendations, guys, I'll check them both out and keep slogging on with this coursework...