Final Exam Questions

What is hydraulic equilibrium?

This is a soil condition under which total water potentials throughout that soil are the same. Hence, there is no water movement (since there is no difference in water total potentials)at the hydraulic equilibrium

Hi Maja, am am wondering if the final exam will be cumulative of the entire course, or if it will just mainly focus on the material we learned after the midterm? In other words, should I review all the material prior to the midterm? I am sure this was talked about in class during the last week, however I missed the last week of class. Thanks!!!

The final will focus on the material covered after the midterm exam, but since the nature of the soil science material is such that numerous concepts are connected, you cannot completely overlook the material covered in the 1st half of the course. For example, question from our discussion no.3 re. the Goose soil is an excellent example of a question where numerous concepts will need to be summarized.

Hey Maja, for explaining why a Bn, Bf, Bt, horizon exists could we say that they were illuviated by substances from the A horizon and that they were enriched by the C horizon. If you had parent material with a high clay content couldn't that lead you to having a Bt horizon? I am just making sure that we should incorporate both the C and A when describing the factors that created the B. Thank you!

Some materials (clay, salts, organic matter) are brought into the B horizons from either A and/or C horizons. But then there are also numerous soil formation processes that occur in the B horizon itself. Some examples of those processes are gleying (Bg), shrinking/swelling of clay (Bss and Bv), weathering of minerals (Bf), freezing/thawing (By)...