Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Soil Particles
- Sand, silt, and clay
- less than 8/100 inch (2 millimeters) in diameter
- referred to as soil separates
- Silt is as smooth as flour when dry and
holds water well; these particles are smaller
than sand but larger than clay.
- Clay particles are less than 8/100,000 inch (0.002
millimeter) in diameter and are the soil separates
most involved in chemical reactions in the soil.
- Clay particles have 10,000 or more
times the surface area of the same
weight of sand.
- Since water, nutrients, and organic
matter are all held on surfaces, soils low
in clay cannot support much plant
growth.
- Too much clay, however, can make
the soil sticky, plastic, and slow to
take in water or air.
- Stone, gravel, cobbles, and boulders
- part of a field soil
- larger than 2 millimeters
- not included in the analysis of soil texture
- gritty to the touch
- range from 2/1,000 to 8/100 inch (0.05 to 2 millimeters)