Soil Particles

Soil Particles

Sand, silt, and clay
1. less than 8/100 inch (2 millimeters) in diameter
2. referred to as soil separates
3. Silt is as smooth as flour when dry and holds water well; these particles are smaller than sand but larger than clay.
4. Clay particles are less than 8/100,000 inch (0.002 millimeter) in diameter and are the soil separates most involved in chemical reactions in the soil.
  1. Clay particles have 10,000 or more times the surface area of the same weight of sand.
  2. Since water, nutrients, and organic matter are all held on surfaces, soils low in clay cannot support much plant growth.
  3. Too much clay, however, can make the soil sticky, plastic, and slow to take in water or air.
Stone, gravel, cobbles, and boulders
1. part of a field soil
2. larger than 2 millimeters
  1. not included in the analysis of soil texture
gritty to the touch
range from 2/1,000 to 8/100 inch (0.05 to 2 millimeters)

Resource summary

	Created by Dale Lewis about 9 years ago