The team stuck it out for a long 10-hour day in the field today, completing 3 group pits and 2 individual pits. The team made the drive north and east from Lincoln into the Todd Valley, a large valley cut into the glaciated uplands by the Platte River before it was abandoned in favor of the modern day Platte River Valley. We met Keith Glewen (Extension Educator) at the UNL Agricultural Research and Development Center (ARCD) who gave us some background on the landscape and pumped the first pit out for us (thanks Keith!).
The contest organizers arranged a nice catena of soils which exposed our students to the wide variety of parent materials in the Todd Valley, ranging from modern alluvium to old alluvium, eolian sand, and loess:
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| Todd Valley landscape |
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| Stefan Swenson considering landforms |
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| Bri Egge (L) and Kathleen Hobert (R) describing and sampling a Hapludoll formed in alluvium over eolian sands |
The team then travelled to the Wanahoo reservoir, where they described 2 soils - a Hapludalf formed in loess on a backslope (likely a former eroded Mollisol), and an Argialboll (!) in an upland depression:
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| Luke Ratgen and Anthony Bosch work on a description in a pair |
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| Excellent prismatic structure in the argillic horizon of an Argialboll formed in loess |
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| Sara Bauer (R), Hatley Christensen (C) and Bri Egge (L) work as a small team to complete a description |
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| Goldy meets his first Argialboll!! |
Tomorrow brings the final day of practice and the coaches meeting. The team is in very high spirits and looking forward to the contest on Thursday! We are at one with our textural triangles.
