Today the team traveled northeast out of Manhattan to Pottawatomie County, KS, our first look at a Pre-Illinoian glacial landscape. Along the way, we crossed stream terraces, outwash sediments and dunes, and finally up onto a till mantled landscape. This Pre-Illinoian till mantle was expressed most strongly on summit positions, and eroded or mixed/incoporated into colluvial/pedisediment-like material on backslopes. The team described four pits (all Argiustolls): Two pits on backslopes formed in colluvium/pedisediment over residuum, one on a backslope formed in glacial till over residuum, and finally a summit pit formed in glacial till:
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| Minnesota Team A completing a team description of an Argiustoll on a summit |
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| Minnesota Team B completing a team description |
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| Panoramic view of four pits on the Brunkow Farm site |
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| Argiustoll pits at the Brunkow Farm site |
The character of the Pre-Illinoian till that the students encountered was different from much of what we see further north, but unmistakably till in its unsorted textures (Clay Loams), and presence of coarse fragments of varying lithologies and sizes.
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| Sioux Quartizite erratics and sedimentary coarse fragments from spoil pile |
The surface was exposed and eroded on a pasture just across the fence from pit P-17, showing us the quartzite erratics and other coarse fragments present in the till:
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| Exposed and eroded surface in pasture showing coarse fragments present in till (note quartzite erratic in foreground). |
The team also had their first look at some Kansas slickensides, well developed clay films, prismatic structure, and many forms of secondary carbonates:
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| Slickensides |
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| Secondary carbonate accumulations |
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| Prismatic structure with slickensides (top and bottom) and clay films from a Btss horizon |
The following video is for my Basic Soil Science students (if you are even reading this ;)): What is happening in this video?:
