As humble as they may appear, the pits have a rather grand history. In 1960, they were a significant part of a field trip for the 6th World Congress of Soil Science, held in Madison. During that meeting, soil scientists from the United States introduced a soil classification system, known as the 7th Approximation, that eventually served as the basis for our current Soil Taxonomy and for many soil classification systems around the world.
December 18, 2019
The 7th Approximation.
It sounds like a Bob Dylan song title... I must be thinking of "4th Time Around" and "Queen Jane Approximately"... but I'm reading "There are three soil pits in Bill’s Woods...."
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Today's blog theme is numbers.
"The 7th Approximation."
Not to be confused with "The 5th Level"
The speckle, the stripe, the schmear, the explosion...a parent's taxonomy of soiled underpants, approximating easily salvageable to not worth it.
I grew up on Tama, Muscatine, soil. Spent a fair amount of time on Otely, Ladoga. The Tama, Muscatine has some slope, naturally drained, easier to farm, although with pattern tiling the Otely, Ladoga, can be impressive. Given a choice, go with the naturally drained.
TMI?
Fascinating
Messing around with Mother Earth? The patriarchy of soil scientists tearing her open and seeding her. And all for having their fun. There should be a law.
From Rancis House, The 7th Approximation, Robert Ludlam's red hot new thiller. A woman who is a dead ringer for the recently deposed Speaker of the House of Representatives is found floating in the Mediterranean by a Minorcan nonce fisherman. The woman is alive but severely traumatized and mindlessly repeats one word, impeach.
Seriously, it's all about knowing the clay strata that traps water or not. Without enough of that strata the needed fertilizer goes down and down and is lost. And with too much the septic tanks wont work.
Seriously, you're trolling me, right?
My parents' house in the 80's had hardpan clay under 6 inches of heavy clay. When it was wet, I could dig out small chunks with a pickax. When it was dry, I couldn't. Twelve truckloads of topsoil (spread by my spindly arms) and a decade later, the Step-Monster made my dad sell the house. Should have strangled the bitch.
Soil science is geology for girls
My husband had Dr. Hole as a professor at the UW and students learned the first day that what lies beneath our feet is soil, not dirt. Never, ever say dirt.
black dirt
red dirt
sand
gravel
rocks
concrete
asphalt
mud
The Crack Emcee said: "Not to be confused with "The 5th Level"
Nor with the 39 Steps.
Regarding the 7th Approximation, let them do it until they do it right. We'll wait.
Ann, your post and some of the previous comments (especially TraditionalGuy, and JES) brought a smile to my face. My former father-in-law (Raymond J Kunze), now departed, was a professor of Soil Science at Michigan State University. He got his PhD at Iowa State University. He was a very smart guy, and got quite animated when trying to explain soil science to me (an accountant). Several concepts still rattle around in my head 40 years or so after the fact. First, as JES stated, it's NOT "dirt", it IS "SOIL". He worked at arriving at mathematical formulas to describe/predict how water would move through various soil types. He spoke of "saturation" - how much water a particular soil could/did hold; and "diffusivity" - how readily/quickly water would flow through a particular soil.
I now live in Arizona. I think of him and his science every time I attempt to plant/nurture some green thing in our challenging yard. In our area, we have a monster they call "caliche". Often it's nearly as impenetrable as concrete, though, I think it must be a category of soil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliche. It is always a challenge to work with.
Merry Christmas, Ray. Ashes to ashes. Soil to soil.
Funny that the man's name was Hole and he dug super-famous holes.
This thread is a bore.
Daskol: Your comment doesn’t augur well for you — you’re liable to garner some smart-ass responses.
The 7th Approximation --by Sir Arthur Conan Soyle
It's a deep subject, holes.
Speaking of holes, an oldie but goodie: https://cheezburger.com/7800547328
https://youtu.be/MqYb16K1J28
The best Bob Dylan cover.
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