Soils

The topic of soils was never all that interesting to me, to be honest. I have not taken a soils class in college, my only experience with learning about soils comes from a brief overview in biology and a high school earth science class. The only things I remember learning from these classes about soil is the different soil horizons and the differences between those horizons. In class on Tuesday was the first time I have ever heard about soil orders and those made the topic of soil a little less boring. It was interesting to see the effects that climate, weather and placement has on the soil and that those three things are essentially the deciding factors for which order of soil you will find in an area. It would be interesting to see the effects of climate change over the years on the soil types. Would they change at all and is it possible for the order of the soil to change?

                Another aspect of the soils that I found fascinating was the serious of slides showing the “black soils” of the south. At one point in the Cretaceous period, that area of Georgia and Alabama was the shore which caused the soils to be different than the surrounding soils. Even after the shoreline moved outward, the soils remained the same and the graph showed that this was the area with the best cotton crop and with a higher African American population. Eventually, the people living in this “black soils” ring became more democratic and voted for Obama while surrounding areas did not. It was very interesting to see the correlation between all these things and soils because it is something I never would have thought would be related. It just shows that where you are raised and the soils you live on have an impact on who you are. I have learned that soils are much more important in countless aspects than I ever thought.