Planning the use of soils on drumlins

Excerpt

MANY groups gather data from soil maps and reports to make land use decisions for nonagricultural situations. Landowners and sanitarians commonly use soil maps to select sites for septic systems (20). Regional planners and geologists identify potential sources of coarse aggregate from soil reports. Civil engineers plan highway routes based on estimates of blasting and grading costs derived in part from Soil Conservation Service publications. Often, land use potentials and limitations are published in these reports that aid map users. However, pedologists can improve the usefulness of their reports by more thoroughly understanding and explaining complexities of surface and near-surface materials in areas they study.

Parent materials of soils on drumlin landscapes, for example, can appear deceptively simple. Drumlins are glacially streamlined hills that rise up to 200 feet (60 meters) above the surrounding surface. Thousands of these hills cover large portions of the United States and Canada. Drumlins are used for a variety of urban and agricultural purposes, many of which are influenced by the composition of the drumlin surface.

Most drumlins have uniform soils formed in …