Soil Order Distinction Question

You have to be careful about making a decision about soil order only based on the presence of the Ah horizon that is thicker than 10 cm. Many soil types will have such Ah horizon, but not every Ah horizon thicker than 10 cm is the Chernozemic Ah. The Chernozemic Ah horizon needs to fulfill ALL of the following criteria: to be thicker than 10 cm, to be present in a soil located in a semi-arid to arid climatic zone in a (natural) grassland ecosystem, to have C/N <17, to have Ca2+ ion as the dominant ion on exchange complex, and to have base saturation >80%.

MajaKrzic (talk)16:24, 13 April 2016