Exam 3: Soil Classification

Investigating the soils of northern Canada on summer, you dig a soil pit easily though fairly uniform peat material until, at 75 cm deep, your shovel hits a layer that is frozen solid.Into which type of soil are you most likely digging?

Organic matter distribution in the profile is a significant criterion for differentiating epipedons.

In which soil orders would recent alluvium most likely be a common parent material?

The name of a subgroup indicates the order, suborder, and great group of which it is a member.

In soils of which great group would you most likely find wide surface cracks during periods of dry weather?

Epipedons are diagnostic subsurface horizons that are one of the primary means of classifying soils in the United States.

A polypedon or individual soil is a group of closely related pedons that conceptually approximates what in the United States is called a soil series.

A soil pedon is ____.

Histosols generally have higher organic matter contents than Mollisols.

Spodosols are generally less acidic and less sandy than are Alfisols.

If the soils are to be used for crop production, for which soil order would land drainage be most critical

Andisols are found mostly near recently active volcanoes.

The categories of Soil Taxonomy can be listed from the broadest (first) and most specific (last) as: order, suborder, great group, subgroup, series, family.

Which soil moisture regime has the highest soil moisture levels?

The nomenclature of Soil Taxonomy is characterized by all but which one of the following statements?

Which of the following categories of Soil Taxonomy provides the greatest specificity of soil properties?

Soils classified as Inceptisols have the least well developed profiles of those in any order in the Soil Taxonomy system.

Vertisols are characterized by high contents of swelling-type silicate clays.

Soils in which of the following suborders would be more likely to occur in Minnesota than in Texas?

Argillic horizons are characterized by ___.