For my project I will attempt to give you guys a look at soils through the perspective of an engineer. You will notice some major differences, most notably the disinterest in the organic aspects of the soil. It is not looked at as something that is beneficial and alive, but oftentimes as something to overcome and change to suit a particular se of needs. Cohesionless soils have particles tend to not stick together. They are composed mostly of sand and maybe some silt.
Organic soils are spongy, crumbly, and compressible.
These attributes are intrumental in determining the suitability of a soil for construction purposes. One method used to determine the makeup of a soil is a hydrometer, which we used in the first lab. It is based on Stoke's Law that states that a larger grain size will result in a larger terminal velocity when travelling through a fluid. This means that you can determine the grain size by how quickly it travels downward through a medium such as water. Consistency for a particular soil is defined by the water content present when it changes its response to stress.