Today is Competition Day! The team is ready and raring to go! And we finally get to find out where the competition sites are.
Photo 1: The 2015 UMN Soil Judging Team (l to r): Coach Ed Nater, Teng Vang, Sondra Larson, Amanda Wolff, Team Captain Rusty Zimmerman, Nick Vetsch, Luke Ratner, Leslee Jackson, Andrea Williams, and Assistant Coach Erik Schilling
After a long drive with a very long caravan of minivans and other vehicles, we arrive at the competition site - the Marcell Experimental Forest, located about 3 minutes north of Grand Rapids. This is a great site for the contest, as the landscapes and soils are very diverse, including lots of glacial till uplands and fen and bog filled depressions.
We arrive at the first two pits, which are part of the individual competition where each student competes against all others. The coaches get a quick view of the sites, which are located in sandy outwash. Instructions are given to everyone and then the students are led to the pits by the pit monitors and the coaches are taken to the Research Station Center to grade the competition scoresheets.
Photo 2. The first individual pit. An upland pit formed in sandy outwash with incipient sporadic formation.
Photo 3. The second individual pit, formed in similar parent material, but at a lower and wetter landscape position.
After lunch the students go to the three team competition pits where they get to work together as a single team to describe the pits. These pits were located in loamy glacial till along a hillslope. The lowest pit in the sequence was very wet, the other two were significantly drier.
Photo 4. The uppermost pit of the team competition pits. The glacial till in this site is quite variable and much of it has been reworked by water.
Photo 5. The team competition pit at the bottom of the hillslope. This pit is also formed in glacial till but was much much wetter than the two above. Heavy rains the day before necessitated the use of pallets to allow students a place to stand.
Go Gophers!!
