The Gophers are off to a great start at the National Collegiate Soil Judging Contest hosted by University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point, in the land of sand and spodosols! We are excited to continue to dig into the glacial geology of the area and all the fascinating soils the contest hosts have selected.
For Day 1 of practice, we had a few sites on the edge of the western extent of the Green Bay glacial lobe. We saw soils formed on kames, outwash plains, and till plains.
A Dystrudept formed on a kame in a once-logged area. Umbric epipdeon!
Incredible stratification on an Endoaquept formed on an outwash plain.
The control face of the same soil. Check out that wavy boundary…cryoturbation from a time when this soil was experiencing permafrost conditions?
The Gophers on an outwash plain…some eolian sand parent materials on top here.
The proud Minnesota flag!
We ended the day with dinner and an area orientation talk by Bryant Scharenbroch of UWSP. We took lots of notes and asked many questions, as UMN is known for. A big thank you goes out to all of the donors who made our travel to this contest possible. We are grateful to the contest hosts for all their work and commitment. We are excited to dig deep! Go Gophs!
