Tuesday, March 29, 2011

TSUNAMIS

Tsunamis are gigantic waves caused by mass displacements of water out at sea. When water levels are shifted due to underwater tectonic activity, explosions, or even meteors crashing then the displaced water forms a wave which gains speed and amplitude as it approaches shallow coastal water. Tsunamis are not the same as rogue waves which are caused by different means and usually occur far out at sea. They can devastate coastal communities especially in JapN which has almost 200 recorded incidents of tsunamis.




I'm not sure if this is actually a tsunami but it's an awesome video so I'm going to post it


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlPqL7IUT6M&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

SOILS!

The 12 soil orders of the world are here.

One of the most prominent and the proposed state soil of Georgia is the Tifton Soil Series which is in the Ultisol soil order. 


Tifton Soil Profile

Surface layer: dark grayish brown loamy sand

Subsoil - upper: strong brown fine sandy loam
Subsoil - middle: yellowish brown sandy clay loam
Subsoil - lower: strong brown sandy clay
There is more than 5 percent plinthite in the subsoil 
(http://urbanext.illinois.edu/soil/st_soils/ga_soil.htm)
The Munsell Soil Chart is how we identify and categorize different soils. It is broken down into three aspects of the soil coloration, the Hue (or the basic color of the soil, i.e. red, yellow, green, blue, purple), the Value (or the lightness or darkness of the coloration), and the Chroma (or the saturation/ intensity of the color). 

 
 The Soil Texture Dichotomous Key is a battery of questions one answers about a soil while examining it when wet. This helps to further identify it. An example of a soil texture dichotomous key is here.

This is an example of a soil texture diagram: 

Finally, here's a soil map of Georgia!