Community Gardens and Soil Analysis

Community Gardens and Soil Analysis

On this lab day, we walked over to the community gardens from school to learn about soil types and take a look at the plants in the garden. The location was on the property of Centenary United Methodist Church.

There are 12 Orders of Soil Taxonomy: (1) Gelisols; (2) Histosols; (3) Spodosols; (4) Andisols; (5) Oxisols; (6) Verticols; (7) Aridisols; (8) Ultisols; (9) Mollisols; (10) Alfisols; (11) Inceptisols; (12) Entisols; Click here to learn more!

Ultisols
I choose to elaborate on this soil taxonomy because it is the predominant soil type in the state of Georgia. Ultisols are reddish, clay-rich, acidic soils. They are found in humid temperate or tropical regions. Ultisols are a great support for mixed forest vegetation. They are naturally expedient for forestry and stable materials for construction projects. They occupy just over 8% of the non polar continental land area on Earth.

Above is a map of the distribution of the Ultisols Soil Taxonomy

There are 5 suborders of Ultisols: Aquults, Humults, Udults, Ustults, and Xerults. Below is a map of the distribution of the suborder types.

To learn more about Ultisols, click here!

While out at Community Gardens we met Mark Vanderhoek, who is the Director of Media Relations at Mercer University and Founder of Macon Roots. (To learn more about Macon Roots and its impact on the Macon community, click here!)

What we did:
-Did a soil probe with a split spoon corer
-Used a sieve to perform a size fractionation of the soil
-Used a dichotomous key to identify soil types
          - using this we found that we had soil type Loam.
          - we conducted a feel test of the soil by attempting to make a ribbon with the soil but were unsuccessful.

Munsell Soil Color Chart

Soil Texture Diagram

Jackson Springs Park

Jackson Springs Park

On this particular lab day, we visited Jackson Springs Park. It is located off of Nottingham Drive in Macon, GA. It is in walking distance to the newly implemented Ocmulgee River Walk.

Here we were able to get hands on experience / learning with some of the different types of rocks. Our professor provided us with pick mattocks to break open the rocks that lined the creek. We mainly saw granite rocks, where we were able to identify hornblende, feldspar, and quartz.

We found a tunnel at one end of the park, which was kind of creepy but cool at the same time. On the rocks near the tunnel we were able to identify bits of mica.

Jackson Springs is a small but rather quaint park! The slow running creek adds a relaxation element which is always enjoyable.

Mystery of the Megafloods

Mystery of the Megafloods

On one of our lab days, we watched an informational filmed called the Mystery of the Megafloods. The film began by defining what a geologist is, stating that it is similar to a detective looking for clues in a crime scene. A geologist looks at the rocks for clues in history.


The primary question that was evaluated in the film was what caused the bizarre landscape in the Montana region (the scad lands). It took us through the thought process of those scientists trying to figure out the cause.Some of the possible causes included gradual erosion caused by rivers and a giant river flooded over and over again. These were later ruled out because of the enormous potholes.
The last ice age was approximately 20,000 years ago. Another hypothesis was that the glaciers melted, causing a great flood. This, too, was soon ruled out because the ice was too remote.
The next hypothesis was that it was been the result of an enormous catastrophe, perhaps a giant flood. This was thrown out too.
The geologists had trouble determining the cause of the bizarre landscape because they were looking at eye view. No one thought to look from a different perspective until aerial photos were shown. The photos revealed giant ripples in the earth, ripples that resembled those in the sand at the beach.


The next hypothesis was that a glacier dammed the lake, forming the ripples. Glacial Lake Missoula formed as the Cordilleran Ice Sheet dammed the Clark Fork River just as it entered Idaho. The rising water behind the glacial dam weakened it until water burst through in a catastrophic flood that raced across Idaho, Oregon, and Washington toward the Pacific Ocean. This was the cause of the bizarre landscape.


For more information on the flooding of Glacial Lake Missoula and how the flooding occurred, click here.