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National

Cooperative

Soil

Survey Newsletter

Issue 26

February 2004

In This Issue—

Editor’s Note

Issues of this newsletter are

available on the World Wide Web

(http://soils.usda.gov/). Under Quick

Access, click on NCSS Newsletter and

then on the desired issue number.

You are invited to submit stories for

this newsletter to Stanley Anderson,

National Soil Survey Center, Lincoln,

Nebraska. Phone—402-437-5357;

FAX—402-437-5336; email—

stan.anderson@nssc.nrcs.usda.gov.

Review of Dust: A History of

the Small and the Invisible

By Robert J. Ahrens, Director, National Soil

Survey Center, Natural Resources Conservation

Service, Lincoln, Nebraska.

A pedologist’s concept of dust is often the under appreciated

parent material that influences nearly

all soils in some manner. We have

learned that calcareous dusts deposited

over thousands of years formed

petrocalcic horizons in the Desert

Project of New Mexico and that clay

minerals that occur in the surface

horizons of soils in Hawaii are

influenced by dust from faraway

sources. Joseph A. Amato’s book Dust:

A History of the Small and the Invisible

(The University of California Press,

2001) presents a much broader view of

dust. Dust is treated as an

interdisciplinary thread that weaves the

social, medical, and political history

with the history of hygiene, public

policy, and natural sciences.

The history of the concept of dust is

essentially the history of the minute and

minuscule; dust’s origins are the Big

Bang, but dust also comes from

minerals, seeds, pollen, insects, molds,

lichens, bacteria, bone, hair, hide,

feathers, skin, blood, and excrement.

Amato demonstrates through

examples from Western civilization that

ideas about dust have changed

drastically over the past several

hundred years. The concept of dust has

gone through a metamorphosis from an

enduring condition to an enemy of

sanitary civilization and then to an

object of precise scientific study and

technological manipulation.

Probably since the beginning of

agriculture, the peasant has been

labeled as coarse and dirty.

Peasants were associated with the

color of earth and were considered

inferior because of their proximity to

dust and dirt. Many peasant dwellings

from the Middle Ages to the midnineteenth century were one-room huts

with little ventilation and continuous

dust and smoke. However, dust was not

limited to certain classes. During

medieval times, royalty was not

immune to dust and dirt. “The smell of

Henry IV was so ferocious that his wife

had to brew special perfumes to stand

him and Louis XIII (Henry’s son)

prided himself on taking after his

father.” While many of the royalty were

not exempt from body odor, lice, etc.,

they tried to distance themselves from

the peasant by adopting manners. Since

dust permeated all walks of life,

manners became a way for high society

to distance themselves from the dust

and dirt that occurred in all echelons of

society but that came to represent the

peasant stock.

The Industrial Revolution further

promoted dust and disease. Industrial

cities, such as Liverpool, were noted for

the most unhealthy conditions in

England. Liverpool suffered a high

death toll, and in the 1840s, the mean

duration of human life in that city was

26 years, compared to 45 years in

Surrey, England.

Interestingly, Amato shows that

reforms of both products and

philosophy spread throughout the

nineteenth century as the means to

control dust and hinder disease. While

reformers wanted to purify society and

combat dirt on all fronts, including

Review of Dust: A History of the

Small and the Invisible .................. 1

Guy Smith Interviews ......................... 3

Holocene Organic Carbon Losses

in Some Nevada and Utah

Relict Paleosols .............................. 3

Publication Backlog ............................ 7
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NCSS Newsletter

tradition and corruption, industrialists

mounted an assault on the earth through

activities ranging form mining,

lumbering, and steelmaking to printing.

Steel plows, gasoline tractors, dredges,

and ditchers opened the earth to the

winds.

As the Industrial Revolution

promoted a new wave of dust, it also

mass-produced tools and chemicals for

cleaning bodies, homes, and cities.

Industry mass-produced brooms,

shovels, brushes, and soaps. The Bissell

carpet sweeper and vacuum cleaner

helped to control dust in the home.

Hoses and lawnmowers promoted the

establishment of lawns around the home

and provided a barrier to dust.

Manufactured clothing enhanced

personal cleanliness, and improvements

in food processing and packaging made

stores, restaurants, and homes more

sanitary.

During the Industrial Revolution,

dust took on the character of soot, ash,

and smoke rather than the soil and

pollen of past ages. City dust became a

mix of material from construction and

manufactured wastes, and many cities

produced dust specific to their area.

Throughout the nineteenth century and

well into the twentieth century, dust

from industry fouled the soil, water, and

air. The nineteenth century emphasized

colossal things, large visions, immense

undertakings, and sublime buildings. It

saw industries grow, tracks laid across

continents, soil displaced, and huge

clouds of dust. The twentieth century

continued the commitment to largescale projects, but it also showed an

interest in the microscopic and ultrafine.

Regulations and technology deterred

the dust produced from industry in the

last part of the twentieth century. Also,

dust became more scrutinized during

the twentieth century. Volcanologists,

meteorologists, soil scientists,

epidemiologists, forensic scientists, and

many other specialists began to focus

on different aspects of dust.

Presently, our technology has

enabled us to examine many different

types of dust, including cosmic dust.

Dust is still a matter of curiosity and

concern. Dust from mining, quarrying,

construction, and agricultural

operations continues to pose immense

dangers. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring

showed how dust from agriculture

could poison the environment, harming

living organisms from the smallest

bacteria to the largest mammals. Public

concern about soil, water, and air

pollution led to regulations of industrial

emissions. In 1978, the U.S.

Government banned aerosol spray cans

containing chlorofluorocarbons, which

are understood to destroy the ozone

layer, which protects the earth from the

sun’s ultraviolet rays.

Today, many people are far removed

from the world of dust. Computers and

virtual reality allow us to fight smart

wars, fly planes, and travel around the

world in the comfort of our homes.

Legions of people have more contact

with representations of life than with

life itself and know more about

computers and screens than they do

about soils and rivers. Hopefully, the

pendulum will swing back to a more

balanced approach, and people will

enjoy the enrichment experienced by

many field soil scientists today.

Pedology and its view of dust have

also changed during the past hundred

years or so. Our ideas of soil genesis

began with the notion of soil derived

solely from the underlying bedrock to

an appreciation of the complicated and

multiple sources of parent material,

including dust.

Amato presents a broad perspective

on dust that at first made me feel

uncomfortable. Some terms are not

precisely defined, and muck is used in

a different context than soil. The Dust

Bowl of the 1930s is mentioned, but

not in great detail. Despite these

shortcomings, reading Amato’s book is

a rewarding experience because it

shows the connections that dust has

with history and political issues. 

A wall of dust over Phoenix.
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NCSS Newsletter

Guy Smith Interviews

By Craig Ditzler, National Leader for Soil

Classification and Standards, National Soil

Survey Center, Natural Resources Conservation

Service, Lincoln, Nebraska

From time to time we receive requests for the publication The

Guy Smith Interviews: Rationale for

Concepts in Soil Taxonomy, which was

published cooperatively by the Soil

Conservation Service, Soil

Management Support Services, and

Cornell University in 1986. Our supply

has been completely exhausted for

some time, so we have been unable to

supply copies upon request.

We have scanned the text of the

original document and have posted

both MSWORD and PDF versions

of the files on our Website (http://

soils.usda.gov/technical/classification/

taxonomy/rationale/). Each file type is

about 3MB.

One advantage of these files is that

you can search the document for key

words and find all references to a given

subject. The original document

Guy D. Smith

contained complete transcripts of the

interviews on two microfiche pages in a

pocket at the back of the book. We tried

to include these with the files, but we

could not obtain a high-quality copy

that could be read and translated

accurately by our optical scanner.

Therefore, the electronic files of the

document do not include the text from

the microfiche.

I have discussed this project with Dr.

Armand Van Wambeke, original

collaborator for the publication at

Cornell University (now professor

emeritus), and he supports the effort to

make the document available

electronically and confirms that there

are no copyright restrictions limiting

the use and distribution of the

document. 

Holocene Organic Carbon

Losses in Some Nevada

and Utah Relict Paleosols

By W.D. Nettleton,1 M.D. Mays, and R.

Burt, Natural Resources Conservation Service,

Lincoln, Nebraska.

Introduction

One concern in global warming is

the impact it will have on the gaseous

emission from soils. An increase of 3 0C

in temperature over the next 50 years

may decrease soil organic carbon

(SOC) by 10 to 15 percent in the top 30

cm of soils, resulting in a total emission

of 50 to 100 Pg of C into the

atmosphere (Lal et al., 1995). In this

paper, we estimate the SOC losses from

some Nevada and Utah relict paleosols

since the late Pleistocene. We assumed

that the mean annual temperatures of

the Great Basin area of the American

Southwest may have fallen 7 to 8 oC

during the glacial maximum

(Brakenridge, 1978).

Methods and Materials

The similarity of climate, vegetation,

geomorphic history, and kinds of soil

within the Great Basin and parts of the

adjoining states (fig. 1) made the study

feasible. The area has a moist winterspring, dry summer-fall climatic pattern

with broad temperature and

precipitation ranges (Kincer, 1941).

The vegetation includes mountain big

sagebrush (Artemisia vaseyana) and

related cold-tolerant species at the

highest elevations (fig. 2); big

sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) and

juniper (Juniperus spp.) at intermediate

elevations (fig. 3); and low sagebrush

(Artemisia arbuscula) and related

desert species at the lowest, warmest

elevations (fig. 4).

1W.D. Nettleton, 402-437-5310,

dennis.nettleton@.nssc.nrcs.usda.gov.

Figure 1.—Location of the study areas within

and near counties of the Great Basin.

Included are numbers of pedons sampled

in the four counties. The map is

modified from Morrison, 1965.
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NCSS Newsletter

We included 22 soils in areas of

residuum, pedisediment, and till from

intermediate extrusive volcanic rocks of

the John Day belt in Nevada and the

Tonopah belt in southwestern Utah

(Oldow et al., 1989). The soils are on

extensive interstream-divide surfaces

that lower through one or more scarps

to present-day flood plains. The Black

Canyon transect is typical (fig. 5). We

assumed that these interstream divides

are stable since they were bypassed by

Holocene erosion surfaces. Assuming,

then, that these surfaces are all late

Pleistocene or older, they would have

formed under the influence of one or

more pluvial-interpluvial cycles. The

cycles would have included periods of

greater effective moisture as the ancient

lakes rose, perhaps by increased

precipitation or only by lowered

temperature. All the soils are well

drained. Most of the climatic data for

the sites are from soil descriptions

(Benham, 1997).

Results

The mean annual soil temperature

(MAST) data closely match elevation

(fig. 6). The local scientists had inferred

the climatic data from expert opinion

techniques (Brasher and Benham,

1996) because in most cases there were

no nearby weather stations. Soils were

analyzed at the National Soil Survey

Laboratory (Soil Survey Laboratory

Staff, 1996). Bulk density (Db) data are

necessary in calculations of the

accumulation of SOC in kg m-2 (OCp)

in each pedon. That is, OCp equals

SOC in the horizon * Db * horizon

thickness * volume fraction of fine

earth * 0.1. The OCp is the sum of the

SOC for the pedon to the lowest

horizon included, commonly the

lowest B horizon. We used Statgraphics

Plus for all statistics (Manugistics, Inc.,

1997). Where necessary, the data were

transformed to obtain more normal

distributions for the statistical analysis.

A close relationship occurs between

OCp and MAP in this cool-season

rainfall pattern (fig. 7). In this

environment, a MAP of 37 cm

separates the Mollisols from all of the

other soils, i.e., the Aridisols, Vertisols,

Inceptisols, and Alfisols. Most

Mollisols also have an OCp

accumulation of more than 5.2 kg/m2

.

One pedon (7051), an Aridic

Haplustalf, contains more OCp than

some of the Mollisols. Pedons 6840

and 6834 are Mollisols but have an

OCp accumulation of less than 5.2

kg/m2. All of the Mollisols have mean

annual soil temperatures of < 6.0 °C

(fig. 8).

Figure 2.—Nearly level late Pleistocene

surface on Table Mountain. The

vegetation is mountain big sagebrush

(Artemisia vaseyana), lupine (Lupinus),

and scattered short grasses. (Thesis

research area, Mays, 1982.)

Figure 3.—An east-facing nose position on a

convex ridge at an intermediate

elevation. The vegetation includes big

sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata),

bluebunch wheatgrass (Agropyron

spicatum), juniper (Juniperus), and

rabbitbrush (Crysothamnus).

Figure 4.—An area of the Karlo-Fertaline soil

landscape on a bypassed alluvial fan

surface. Elevation is 1,650 meters, the

mean annual temperature is 7 0C, and

the mean annual precipitation is 28

centimeters. The Karlo soil, a

Haploxerert, supports rabbitbrush

(Crysothamnus), and the Fertaline soil,

an Argidurid, supports low sagebrush

(Artemisia arbuscula). Figure 5.—Location of pedon 7051 on the Black Canyon transect.
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NCSS Newsletter

Conclusions

The mean annual temperatures of the

area studied may have fallen as much as

7 or 8 oC during the glacial maximum

(Brakenridge, 1978). Therefore, all of

the soils except for pedons 7046 and

7048 would likely have been Mollisols

during the glacial maximum (fig. 9).

Thus, all of the ground soils with MAP

of <37 cm would have lost SOC in

reaching their present levels. Table 1

shows that the mean estimated OCp

losses were 60 percent for the Aridisols,

43 percent for the Alfisols, and 24

percent for the Mollisols. These are the

mean percentage losses of the mass of

SOC estimated to be present in the soils

in areas of andesite in late-Pleistocene

time. Although the climatic and

vegetation ranges are typical for the

region, there may be differences in OCp

losses resulting from variations in

parent material, topography, and

geomorphic age.

References

Benham, E.C. 1997. National Soil

Survey Laboratory characterization

database. A CD-ROM available

from USDA, NRCS, NSSC,

Federal Building, Room 152, 100

Centennial Mall North, Lincoln,

Nebraska.

Brakenridge, G.R. 1978. Evidence for a

cold, dry full-glacial climate in the

American Southwest. Quaternary

Research 9: 22-40.

Brasher, B.R., and E.C. Benham. 1996.

Quality assessment of soil survey

information. In W.D. Nettleton

(ed.), Data reliability and risk

assessment in soil interpretations,

pp. 21-31. Soil Science Society of

America Special Publication 47.

Soil Science Society of America,

Inc., Madison, Wisconsin.

Figure 7.—General distribution of the soils relative to total organic

carbon and the mean annual precipitation.

Figure 6.—Relationship between mean annual soil

temperature and elevation for the 22 soils.

Figure 8.—Distribution of the soils relative to mean annual soil

temperature and mean annual precipitation.
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NCSS Newsletter

Table 1.—Estimated organic carbon loss of some relict paleosols through the Holocene

Aridisols Alfisols Mollisols

Pedon OCp OCp Pedon OCp OCp Pedon OCp OCp

no. Holocene Pleistocene no. Holocene Pleistocene no. Holocene Pleistocene

7046 1.3 3.2 7348 2.3 9.9 6840 3.9 9.9

7515 3.7 9.9 7050 4.5 6.2 6839 6.0 9.9

7346 1.7 6.2 7051 6.0 6.2 78560 8.2 9.9

6987 4.3 9.9 78561 9.0 9.9

6988 2.8 9.9 6833 8.1 9.9

6989 4.1 9.9 6834 4.9 9.9

6992 2.4 9.9 78562 12.3 9.9

6994 4.7 9.9

6997 4.3 9.9

6999 3.0 9.9

69100 4.3 9.9

7048 4.7 4.0

Sum 41.3 102.5 12.8 22.3 52.4 69.3

Mean 3.44 8.54 4.27 7.43 7.49 9.90

S.D. 1.18 2.54 1.86 2.14 2.83 0.00

Loss 5.10 3.16 2.41

% loss 60 43 24

Figure 9.—Relationship between organic carbon accumulated in the

pedons and the mean annual soil temperatures in glacial time.
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NCSS Newsletter

Publication Backlog

By W.W. Johnson, Soil Scientist, Natural

Resources Conservation Service, Major Land

Resource Area Soil Survey Region 8, Phoenix,

Arizona.

I

t seems that the publication

 backlog has a long history in the

soil survey program. Garry Muckel

recently told Stan Anderson that the

backlog dates back to 1899, when we

completed four surveys and published

only three. In his master’s thesis, David

Rice Gardner compiled an exhaustive

research of the history of the soil survey

program. In several places in his

manuscript, he made reference to the

publication process in general and the

backlog specifically.

... An important innovation,

though a decidedly mixed

blessing at first, was the

introduction, about 1913, of

automobiles for field parties of

the Soil Survey. ... Model T

transportation tended to speed

up survey progress somewhat,

but not nearly enough to offset

other developments which

were continually adding to the

time required for mapping and

publication. (Gardner, p. 84)

Before the advent of the automobile,

fieldwork was performed out of a

horse-drawn buggy. Not unlike today, it

is cruel irony that technological

advances in one area often come at the

expense of another area. According to

Gardner, the “other developments,”

such as increased detail and accuracy of

mapping, higher standards in

cartography, and closer technical

control, including inspection and

correlation, resulted in a doubling of

the inputs per acre of soil surveys

mapped and published. This situation is

not unlike the one today with NASIS,

SSURGO, GIS, GPS, etc.

... In 1933, with the nation

entering the period of its

greatest demand for modern,

detailed soil surveys, a major

unsolved problem of the Soil

Survey, a time lag between

completion of field surveys

and publication of the results,

had become, if anything,

worse. This time lag for most

surveys was five years or

more. Of the two surveys

noted in chapter 3.32, that of

Jennings Country, Indiana,

completed in 1930, was not

published until 1940, and the

McKenzie County, North

Dakota survey, completed in

1933, was published in 1942

... In some other instances, the

lag was more than fifteen

years. (Gardner, p. 116)

Wow! Ten to fifteen years to

publish a soil survey. Sound familiar?

The following should sound familiar

as well. The accelerated effort to

complete the mapping of all the

cropland in the U.S. back in 1986-87

following passage of the 1985 Food

Security Act was not a new idea. In

1933, in an effort to “put men to work”

and cope with the deepening

depression, emergency relief funds

were available to the soil survey. The

College Deans and Experiment Station

Directors and the Land-Grant College

Association requested that the

immediate expansion of the soil survey

result from the use of these funds.

... Accordingly, Acting

Division Chief Kellogg

developed a proposed Public

Works Administration project

Kincer, J.B. 1941. Climate and weather

data for the United States. In G.

Hambridge (ed.), Climate and man,

1941 yearbook of agriculture, pp.

685-1228. U.S. Department of

Agriculture. U.S. Government

Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Lal, R., J. Kimble, E. Levine, and C.

Whitman. 1995. Towards

improving the global data base on

soil carbon. In R. Lal, J. Kimble,

E. Levine, and B.A. Stewart (eds.),

Advances in soil science: Soils and

global change, pp. 433-436. CRC

Lewis Publishers, London.

Manugistics, Inc. 1997. Statgraphics

Plus for Windows, version 3.

Mays, M.D. 1982. A comparison of

Mollisols from three different

climatic regions in the United

States. Ph.D. dissertation,

University of Nebraska, Lincoln,

Nebraska.

Morrison, R.B. 1965. Quaternary

geology of the Great Basin. In

H.E. Wright, Jr., and D.G. Frey

(eds.), The Quaternary of the

United States, pp. 265-285.

Princeton University Press,

Princeton, New Jersey.

Oldow, J.S., A.W. Bally, H.G. Avé

Lallemant, and W.P. Leeman. 1989.

Phanerozoic evolution of the North

American Cordillera; United States

and Canada. In A.W. Bally and

A.R. Palmer (eds.), The geology of

North America, an overview, pp.

139-232. The Geological Society

of America, Vol. A. The Geological

Society of America, Boulder,

Colorado.

Soil Survey Laboratory Staff. 1996.

Soil survey laboratory methods

manual. Soil Survey Investigations

Report 42, Version 3.0. U.S.

Department of Agriculture, Soil

Conservation Service. 
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NCSS Newsletter

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all

its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex,

religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, or marital or family

status. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities

who require alternative means for communication of program information

(Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET Center at

(202) 720-2600 (voice and TDD).

To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of Civil

Rights, Room 326-W, Whitten Building, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW,

Washington, D.C. 20250-9410 or call (202) 720-5964 (voice and TDD). USDA

is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

Emergency Rubber project;

the Bureau’s stock of

unpublished soil survey

reports, already in paralyzing

backlog without a war,

accumulated further, as the

publication program was cut to

less than half of capacity.

(Gardner, pp. 230-231)

Sometime between 1945 and 1957,

they got a handle on the backlog:

At the present writing (1957)

...Federal appropriations for

the Soil Survey have been

appreciably increased since

the integration. One important

result of the additional funds

has been the final elimination

of the burdensome backlog of

unpublished soil survey

reports. Publication is now on

a current basis. (Gardner,

p. 245)

Sometime between 1957 and

1972, they let it get out of hand again.

There was a publication backlog when I

hired on with the outfit in the fall of

1972. For over 30 years, we’ve talked

about being able to publish a survey

within a year of completing the

fieldwork. To my knowledge, we

which was to provide

personnel and materials for

cartographic and publication

work, on a scale sufficient to

eliminate within one year the

entire backlog of unpublished

soil survey reports, and to

place the publication program

on a current basis. This

proposed project, together

with an itemized plan for

completion of the detailed soil

survey of the agricultural area

of the United States in ten

years (also prepared by

Kellogg), was forwarded by

the Bureau Chief to the

Information Director

Eisenhower, and to the Office

of the Secretary. Neither

proposal ever saw the light of

day. (Gardner, p. 201)

Eliminating the publication

backlog in 1 year was an ambitious

goal indeed. The plan never had a

chance. World events were looming

on the horizon. The Nation would

soon be at war.

In common with some other

efforts going on in the world

in 1942 ... cartographic

facilities and trained personnel

were needed for military mapmaking; field survey parties

melted as soil surveyors, like

everybody else, found

themselves in uniform; soil

scientists together with

geologists and others,

developed and applied

techniques of military

interpretation of soil maps;

special field parties were

assigned to extensive soil

surveys such as those for the

planting of guayule by the

accomplished that feat only once. I

suppose the fact that it was the soil

survey of the District of Columbia is

only a coincidence.

When we reorganized in 1995 and

the MOs were created, there was a

“mandate” at the first MO Leaders

meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, to

eliminate the backlog in 2 years. It was

a “just do it” approach, with no real

strategy or reallocation of resources to

make it happen. Most importantly, there

didn’t seem to be any attempt to study

where, when, and why the delays

occurred. Maybe the current effort will

be more successful.

References

Anderson, S.P., personal

communication with G.B. Muckel

in December 2003.

Gardner, D.R., The National

Cooperative Soil Survey of the

United States. A thesis presented to

the Graduate School of Public

Administration, Harvard

University, May 1957. U.S.

Department of Agriculture, Natural

Resources Conservation Service,

Resource Economics and Social

Science Division, Soil Survey

Division, Historical Notes No. 7.