1

National

Cooperative

Soil

Survey Newsletter

Issue 16

August 2001

In This Issue—

Editor’s Note

Issues of this newsletter are

available on the World Wide Web

(www.statlab.iastate.edu/soils/soildiv).

Click on NCSS and then on the desired

issue number of the NCSS Newsletter.

You are invited to submit stories for

future issues of 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.

Timothy D. Gerber

NCSS Soil Scientist

Achievement Award

By Horace Smith, Director, Soil Survey

Division, Natural Resources Conservation

Service, Washington, D.C.

Timothy D. Gerber from the OhioDepartment of Natural

Resources (DNR), Columbus, Ohio, is

the recipient of the National

Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS) Soil

Scientist Achievement Award for the

year 2001. This award recognizes

exceptional achievement by individuals

working in production soil survey under

the auspices of the NCSS. Tim Gerber

is being honored for his cumulative

impact on and exceptional management

of production soil survey in the State of

Ohio. Tim has been instrumental in

providing direction for the soil survey

program in Ohio and enabling many

other programs that provide quality

products to soil survey users in the

State. Recently, Tim worked to secure

funding through the State legislature

that enabled acceleration of the

digitizing program in Ohio. He

currently is actively pursuing

implementation of an automated map

compilation program for counties being

digitized through the State funding

initiative.

Following is a brief summary of Tim

Gerber’s exceptional career and

achievements in the Ohio Cooperative

Soil Survey Program:

• Tim began his career as a Soil and

Water Conservation Aide for the Stark

Soil and Water Conservation District in

1968. He also worked at various

laboratory and teaching jobs at The

Ohio State University as he worked his

way through college. Tim’s mapping

career began in 1970 as a college intern

with the Ohio Department of Natural

Resources (DNR), Division of Lands

and Soil. He completed a Masters

program in soils in 1973 and began

working as a full-time soil scientist with

the Ohio DNR.

• Tim worked on four project surveys

in Ohio and progressed rapidly to the

position of Soil Survey Project Leader.

He served as project leader for two

surveys in Ohio, in Carroll County and

Jefferson County. Tim trained a number

of young soil scientists and always had

a staff that was very knowledgeable in

the art and science of soil survey work.

• Tim was selected as the Soil Survey

Coordinator for the Ohio DNR’s

current Division of Soil and Water

Conservation in 1986, a position

equivalent to the State Office correlator

position of that time. Tim’s scientific

approach to investigations made him an

NCSS Soil Scientist Achievement

Award ............................................. 1

NCSS Soil Scientist of the Year.......... 2

Governor Guinn signs Orovada soil

bill into law .................................... 3

Laboratory Information Management

System (SSL-LIMS)

Implemented .................................. 4

Improvements Increase Utility of

National Soil Information

System (NASIS) ............................. 4

Searchable Keys to Soil Taxonomy ..... 5

Urban Soils Forum .............................. 6

Language Matters ............................... 7
2

NCSS Newsletter

excellent quality assurance person and a

huge asset to the Ohio Cooperative Soil

Survey Program.

• In 1991, Tim was selected as the

Administrator of the Soil Inventory and

Evaluation Section, Ohio DNR’s top

position in the soil survey program. He

has served as the Chairman of Ohio’s

Soil Inventory Board since 1993. The

inventory board is made up of the

program managers of the three partner

agencies of the Ohio Cooperative Soil

Survey Program—Ohio Department of

Natural Resources, The Ohio State

University, and NRCS.

• Tim has also served as a member of

the NRCS Division Director’s Advisory

Committee. He is recognized nationally

for the high-quality work he does and is

committed to making the program the

best it can be. Tim has been active in

professional organizations, such as Soil

Science Society of America,

Association of Ohio Pedologists, Ohio

Academy of Science, and Soil and

Water Conservation Society, throughout

his career. 

NCSS Soil Scientist of the

Year

By Horace Smith, Director, Soil Survey

Division, Natural Resources Conservation

Service, Washington, D.C.

Eva M. Muller, Soil Survey Project Leader for the Spokane

County soil survey in the State of

Washington, is the recipient of the 2001

National Cooperative Soil Survey

(NCSS) Soil Scientist of the Year

Award.

The NCSS Soil Scientist of the Year

Award nationally “recognizes

exceptional achievement by soil

scientists who are working in the

production phase of the soil survey

program.” The first award was

presented in 1999 as part of the Soil

Survey Centennial Celebration and is

now granted annually to outstanding

soil scientists at the GS-12 level and

below. Nominees must have a minimum

of 3 years service in the production

phase of soil survey. Individuals may

receive this award only once during

their career.

Eva M. Muller has had more than 7

years experience working in the

production phase of soil survey. Her

first 4 years were spent in Montana, and

for the past 3 years, she has served as

the Soil Survey Project Leader for the

Spokane County soil survey update in

Washington State. According to Karl

Hipple, State Soil Scientist in

Washington, Eva’s exceptional skills,

abilities, and contributions have made

the Spokane soil survey update stand

out above any soil survey that he has

been involved in or knows about. As a

soil scientist, a soil survey project

leader, a person, and a professional, she

has been second to none. Eva’s efforts

have gone beyond what is expected of a

journeyman soil survey project leader,

and she has been tireless in the pursuit

of excellence for herself, the survey,

and the crew of the Spokane County

soil survey.

Following is a brief description of a

few of Eva’s accomplishments:

• The Spokane County soil survey

benefited from exceptional outreach

and marketing to all soil survey

customers through Eva’s efforts. As an

example, she enlisted the services of

two television stations and developed a

news story about the soil survey’s

efforts and partners. The story was

carried on both news stations. These

news stories not only assisted the

NRCS with obtaining landowner

permissions but also provided accurate

information about soils and soil survey

procedures and products to viewers.

• Eva adopted innovative techniques

for using mylar digital orthophoto

quads (DOQs) as a base for soil survey

maps to increase efficiency in the

delivery of completed soil surveys.

These techniques eliminated the

compilation step of digitizing the soil

survey of Spokane County.

• Eva encouraged and led the Spokane

County soil survey crew to use state-ofthe-art GIS applications to create

innovative products for the soil survey.

For example, a GIS application was

used to evaluate and illustrate

differences between 1968 soil mapping

and current updated mapping for

quality-control purposes. The soil

survey team used ARCView to

routinely analyze original soil maps,

develop new map unit concepts, display

soil information for progress reviews,

and market soil information to the many

user groups.

• Eva has developed and maintained an

outstanding level of interaction and

coordination between NRCS and all

NCSS partners involved in the Spokane

County soil survey project, including

local groups and units of government.

Eva M. Muller
3

NCSS Newsletter

Governor Guinn signs

Orovada soil bill into law

Reprinted from The Humboldt Sun, June 25,

2001 (Volume 32, Issue 129), Winnemucca,

Nevada; by Dave Woodson, Sun Staff Writer.

I

t’s official—Orovada soil is

 Nevada’s state soil.

In a ceremony recently in the

governor’s office in Carson City with

Orovada School students and teacher

Mike Teichert, Governor Kenny Guinn

signed into law a bill designating the

Orovada soil as the state soil.

Orovada students in sixth through

eighth grades researched the project for

more than a year and then lobbied the

legislature under the guidance of

teacher Mike Teichert.

Those students made presentations

to both the Assembly Committee on

Government Affairs and the Senate

Committee on Government Affairs.

Both houses of the legislature passed

the bill (S.B. 152) unanimously.

“This is a good bill,” Guinn said to

the students. “You have done a good

job.”

Teichert’s sixth grade son, Zack, told

the governor, “We want people to

understand how farming the soil puts

food on the table.”

Guinn urged the students to continue

their hard work, saying in parting:

“Study hard and get A’s.”

“Basically, I thought this would be a

good way for the kids to see closure to

their project,” Teichert said. “It was

really a great experience.”

Teichert said the students made the

trip to the governor’s office on short

notice.

“On Thursday at 8:45 a.m. we got a

call from the governor’s office basically

telling us the bill signing of the

Orovada soil—and there would be a

photo shoot as well—was the next day

at 8:30,” he said. “They gave us less

than 24 hours’ notice.”

At first, Teichert thought: “Oh, there

is no way we can do this.” Friday was

the last day of school.

Orovada school teacher Mike Teichert and his sixth through eighth graders were present when

Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn signed into law a bill that would make Orovada soil the state

soil.

Orovada soils are commonly in areas of semiarid rangeland with sagebrush-grass plant

communities. The principal grops grown on these soils are alfalfa for hay and seed; winter

wheat and barley; and grasses for hay and pasture.

She made particularly strong alliances

with the Spokane County Health

District, the Pacific Northwest Indian

Agency, and geologists in the

Washington Department of Natural

Resources. These efforts ultimately

benefited all groups that have worked

with the survey. 
4

NCSS Newsletter

Improvements Increase

Utility of National Soil

Information System

(NASIS)

From “USDA NRCS Technology News, ”

June 2001.

Recent improvements to the National Soil Information

System (NASIS) provide better and

faster access to soil data and reports.

The NASIS Central Server, which hosts

the first application on the USDA Web

Farm at Fort Collins, increases

performance at the field office level and

allows interpretations and map unit data

to be shared among all users.

Soil survey data can be exported

from NASIS in the new SSURGO

Version 2 data standard. These data can

be loaded into an MS Access template,

which is available from the NASIS Web

site (http://nasis.nrcs.usda.gov). The

exports include “fuzzy logic”

interpretations, which provide users

more meaningful information to aid in

making decisions on the use and

management of soils.

For more information, contact:

Russ Kelsea

National Soil Survey Center

(402) 437-5878

russ.kelsea@nssc.nrcs.usda.gov 

Laboratory Information

Management System

(SSL-LIMS) Implemented

By Thomas G. Reinsch, Soil Scientist, Soil

Survey Laboratory, Natural Resources

Conservation Service, Lincoln, Nebraska.

The Soil Survey Laboratoryimplemented a laboratory

information management system (SSLLIMS) in April 2001. The SSL-LIMS is

part of the NASIS architecture, and

common data elements are shared. The

client-server application operates within

the Microsoft Windows environment

and utilizes a relational database for

data storage. Internal reports are

viewed with a Web browser. This

system replaces the mainframe-based

information system that has been used

since 1976. Currently, a combination of

the two systems is being used. Data are

entered into the SSL-LIMS and

transmitted to the mainframe database.

The mainframe database is used to

provide Web access. It will be used

until a replacement is created.

Laboratory personnel use the SSLBut, having previously secured

school board permission to make the

trip, the students did get to the

governor’s office with only minutes to

spare after a pre-dawn wake-up call.

“We met at the school at 3:45 in the

morning and drove to Carson City and

got there about 8:20, he recalled. “Ten

minutes to go.”

He said the students were ushered

into the governor’s office.

“We went right in and the kids got to

see all the portraits of former governors

and sign their names into the guest

book,” Teichert said.

Teichert said the governor’s office

had the sample of Orovada soil that had

been sent there earlier by the students.

“They had that right in the

governor’s office,” he said. “They had

all the information posted.”

“We thought that was pretty cool.”

Teichert said that Guinn really did

not discuss the bill with the students,

but spoke to them more as a former

superintendent of schools.

“Most of the time he spent talking

about the kids getting good grades so

they could have a shot at getting that

Millennium scholarship, which is a

$10,000 scholarship,” Teichert

reported.

He said once in the governor’s

office, the students seemed to know

exactly what to do.

“They had all just lined up—nobody

told them—they just all lined up around

the governor,” Teichert said. “Silent as

church mice.”

He said he didn’t have to worry

about any misbehavior.

“They acted with a lot of class and

they acted really maturely,” Teichert

recalled.

Teichert said he wanted to thank the

school board and the school district for

supporting the project and making the

transportation available.

He said the presentation that was

made to the legislative committees on

LIMS to log samples, create projects,

request preparations and analyses,

manage laboratory work lists, collect

raw data, and calculate and report

results. The features of SSL-LIMS are

uniform data entry, integrated data

management, accommodation of

multiple preparations for analysis,

ability to quickly add procedures and

instruments, simplified project

management, generation of work lists

for preparation and analyses,

synchronized results and calculations,

and integration with NASIS. 

Orovada soil is available on a power

point CD-ROM and is available to

anyone including teachers who might

be interested in teaching students about

soil.

“Our project wasn’t really so much

about Orovada soil but about soil in

general,” he said. “The main thing was

about the importance of soil to life.

How farming and soil put food on

your table and the conservation

techniques that farmers are utilizing on

their soil.”

Teichert said the CD-ROM would

be available for only the duplication

cost.

“It was really a great culminating

activity for all the work the kids and I

put into this project,” Teichert

concluded. 
5

NCSS Newsletter

Searchable Keys to Soil

Taxonomy

By Noorallah G. Juma, Ph.D., Salman

Productions Inc., Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

We have developed a databaseand Web interface for Keys to

Soil Taxonomy, eighth edition. You can

access this information at http://

www.pedosphere.com/taxonomy/.

We have captured information from

chapters 4 to 16 into the database and

have created HTML files for chapters

1, 2, 3, 4, 17, and 18. The beauty of this

system is the easy access to the data for

the higher category. For example, if you

are at the subgroup level, the

information of the three higher

categories can be accessed by the

hyperlinks on the same page. The

information is presented in pop-up

windows.

The second powerful feature is the

ability to search for subgroup names

using partial or complete names. This is

similar to the concept in the Official

Soil Series database.

We have added a pop-up glossary

which includes the material from

chapters 1, 2, 3 , 17, and 18 and have

arranged the topics in the glossary

sequentially so that people familiar with

the print version will find that the online information is searchable and in the

same format.

The search field within the pop-up

glossary can extract information from

the above-mentioned chapters. For

example, the word “key” yielded the

following results:

Key to the Control Section for ParticleSize Classes in Mineral Soils

Key to the Particle-Size and Substitute

Classes of Mineral Soils

Key to Mineralogy Classes

Key to Cation-Exchange Activity

Classes

Key to Calcareous and Reaction

Classes

Key to Soil Temperature Classes

Key to Soil Depth Classes

Key to Classes of Coatings

Key to Classes of Permanent Cracks

Key to Particle-Size Classes of

Histosols and Histels

Key to Mineralogy Classes for

Histosols and Histels

Key to Soil Depth Classes for Histosols

and Histels

Key to the Control Section for the

Differentiation of Series

All the above items are hyperlinked

to the appropriate sections. These

hyperlinks come in quite handy when

one needs information about technical

terms and concepts in the keys to

orders, suborders, great groups, and

subgroups.

We are still looking for ways to

further improve the interface and

accessibility of this valuable resource.

For more information, contact:

Noorallah G. Juma, Ph.D.

Salman Productions Inc.

812, 10080 Jasper Avenue NW

Edmonton, Alberta

Canada T5J 1V9

Email: njuma@salmanproductions.com

Phone: (780) 421-7834

Fax: (780) 421-7835

Web site: Pedosphere.com 
6

NCSS Newsletter

Urban Soils Forum

By Joyce Scheyer, Soil Scientist, USDA,

Natural Resources Conservation Service,

National Soil Survey Center, Lincoln, Nebraska.

I

n the NCSS Newsletter for May

 2001 (issue 15), I posed the

following questions:

Question 1.—I was thumbing

through the Soil Survey Manual and the

“National Soil Survey Handbook,”

trying to see if there are any guidelines

as to when to call a soil an urban phase.

In residential areas at what density of

houses do you give a map unit the name

of an urban land complex, such as

Alpha-Beta-Urban land complex, 8 to

15 percent slopes? I have heard that, for

NRI purposes, urban land has a housing

density of at least one house per 1.5

acres. Is there any kind of guideline for

mapping?

Question 2.—What is the best way

to map highways—as phases,

components, named series, or

miscellaneous areas? Has anyone

established a map unit for highways of

a certain size?

Following is a response from Dave

Kingsbury, Soil Data Quality Specialist,

USDA, Natural Resources

Conservation Service, MO 13,

Morgantown, West Virginia

(David.Kingsbury@wv.usda.gov):

Joyce,

I just read your article in the NCSS

Newsletter about the Urban Soils

Forum. I can give you my perspective

on the questions you raise.

The basic question as to what

constitutes Urban land may be

somewhat of a moving target. In the

past I considered Urban land to consist

of areas with impervious surfaces, such

as paved parking lots, buildings, and

paved roads—basically, areas that

allow little or no water to enter the soil.

I see that the definition in the “National

Soil Survey Handbook” is more general

and does not require impervious

surfaces. This may be a somewhat

regional definition of Urban land, but I

suspect that it is not much different

from the definition used in other parts

of the country. The Soil Survey of

Nassau County, New York, has quite a

few Urban land units (a consociation

and several complexes) and pretty

much defines Urban land the way I

defined it above. To me, this definition

makes a lot of sense, because if the area

is not covered by impervious surfaces,

it would be some sort of Orthent or

Arent that has some degree of

infiltration and permeability at the

surface (influencing hydrologic

modeling, perhaps). We used 85

percent impervious surface as the break

between an Urban land consociation

and an Urban land complex. Urban land

generally had to make up at least 15

percent of the unit for it to be a named

component. However, according the

criteria for consociations and

complexes in the Soil Survey Manual, it

looks as if Urban land could really be a

named component if it makes up more

than 10 percent of a map unit, since the

Manual says that if the component is

very contrasting, it generally does not

need to be a named component if it

does not exceed 10 percent. Rock

outcrop is the classic example, but

Urban land is just about as limiting (and

very contrasting) as is Rock outcrop.

Concerning the NRI definition for

Urban land, I have also heard similar of

definitions from soil survey project

leaders. In the very narrow valleys of

the Cumberland Plateau of eastern

Kentucky, one of the project leaders

said that the definition used for NRI

was 20 dwellings per mile (again, along

narrow stream flood plains where a

house, driveway, or road pretty much

covered the whole width of the flood

plain). I never used this definition for a

map unit, nor have I recommended it. I

think the NRI definition describes land

use and potential land use in very

general terms, whereas in soil survey

Urban land is treated as more of a

component. The NRI definition fits

better into a complex in soil survey.

What I used to do is a combination

of “armchair transects” and ground

observation. One particularly cold,

snowy winter, I ran out of transects to

crunch and could not do any more

collection until the snow melted. So I

took ASCS slides of some developed

areas (both old development and new

development) in my survey area. I

projected the slides onto a large sheet

of paper and literally laid out

(randomly) transect lines with a ruler.

The transect “points” were either 0.5 or

1.0 centimeter apart, and I just counted

up the impervious surface points out of

the total points on the transect. I then

ran another transect line perpendicular

to the first, starting at the same point as

the first. I did this for quite a few areas

to determine what the density looked

like for various percentages of Urban

land. I thought that this was better than
7

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.

Language Matters

By Stanley Anderson, Editor, USDA, Natural

Resources Conservation Service, National Soil

Survey Center.

Following is a poorly writtenpassage about the virtues of

good writing:

Soil scientists preparing reports

of soils information have

captive readers. If the customers

use thematic maps and/or soil

maps, they must read the soil

scientist’s text no matter how

well, dull or difficult it is to

understand. If the soil scientist

writes well, they will have more

appreciative customers.

 Physician, heal thyself.

Because of a misspelling, the

following sentence is open to a peculiar

interpretation: “Many of the original

native prairie plants are presently

growning on some of the larger

ranches.” 

viewing it on the ground, since large

buildings tend to make you think that

there is more building there and no

buildings may make you think that there

is less impervious surface. It is similar

to Rock outcrop. If you are next to a

rock escarpment (below, looking either

horizontally or up at the escarpment), it

sure looks like a lot, but if you view it

from the air, there is not as much as you

originally thought.

Besides, running transects through

these areas on foot, for determination of

impervious surfaces, was not as

practical, and you would have to cut

through many individual properties

(some with dogs, some without).

Permission acquisition was a major

problem; thus, I employed the

“armchair transect”approach.

Observations of excavations within the

developed areas helped me to

determine characteristics of the

Udorthents or soil series component. It

was surprising how often excavations

were made in these areas.

In mapping highways, I thought that

the best approach was using complexes,

depending on the scale. At the common

scales of 1:12,000 and 1:24,000,

delineating only the paved surfaces of

highways (even of wide highways) is

difficult or impossible. An Urban landUdorthents complex or UdorthentsUrban land complex seemed to describe

the situation pretty well. Usually, a

corridor is delineated that includes the

highway and radically disturbed areas

adjacent to the highway. It does depend

on how radically the soils are disturbed.

Unless the construction method and

materials are very consistent, such as in

mine-soil construction, I do not think

that a series would be as useful

(actually, “appropriate” would be a

better word) as great groups or

subgroups. Phasing a soil or Udorthents

component would probably not be that

good either, since the altered material

below Urban land may or may not be

vastly different from the material in the

adjacent disturbed areas that do not

have impervious surfaces.

 One survey in Kentucky that I

worked with until recently used

Udarents in some of the complexes if

the soils were not too radically

disturbed. These units were

differentiated from from Udorthents

units on the basis of housing density

and type of development (residential vs.

commercial). I had not thought of that

aspect before then. This project staff

was pretty innovative in their approach,

quite possibly because they were not

bound by history or tradition (unlike

me). They really checked all the options

before developing their map units.

Anyway, these are the opinions that I

have developed while working in the

MO-13 area and in New Jersey. I hope

they are not too far off what others are

thinking or doing.