12 Soil Types Of The WORLD! Plus Lab!

Easy Acronym to remember...

I.H.A.S.M.O.V.E.G.A.U.A

Inceptisol- soils with weakly developed subsurface horizons


Histosol- organic soils


Andisol- soils formed in volcanic ash


Spodosol- acid forest soils with a subsurface accumulation of metal-humus complexes


Mollisol- grassland soils with high base status


Oxisol- intensely weathered soils of tropical and subtropical environments


Vertisol-  clayey soils with high shrink/swell capacity


Entisol-  soils with little or no morphological development


Gelisol-  soils with permafrost within 2 m of the surface


Aridisol-  CaCO₃-containing soils of arid environments with subsurface horizon development


Ultisol- strongly leached soils with a subsurface zone of clay accumulation and <35% base saturation


Alfisol-  moderately leached soils with a subsurface zone of clay accumulation and >35% base saturation


All descriptions were taken from this website. All credit is given the University of Idaho. =)


http://soils.cals.uidaho.edu/soilorders/orders.htm


GELISOLS!
I found gelisols interesting because there are only about 9% of it on the Earth. They show very little morphological change. Most gelisols store large quantities of organic carbon. The frozen condition of some gelisol landscapes make it hard for human interactions.


LAB!

We had a pretty fun time with Dr. Rood. He destroyed a lot of ant colonies but we dug into the land and found a new adjective to describe some levels of soil as Clayey. We used a sieve, which had several levels of fine mesh in order to separate the dirt. But since the dirt was so moist it was hard to get past the 2nd or 3rd level. In some picture you could see Joshua and Leslie using the tools we would use in order to get solid samples. We also went to the public garden and observed all the plants including certain bugs that were in the vicinity, such as spiders, ants, and grubs. We all had a fun time playing in the mud as well and had a mud fight with Dr. Rood. It was pretty Awesome.