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| SW101 | Episodic-Endocalcareous, Self-mulching, Black VERTOSOL | |
| Lovely Banks, Bacchus Marsh-Geelong Road | |||
| Plain | |||
| Quaternary basalt (Lovely Banks Monocline) | |||
| plain | |||
| 0 | |||
| East | |||
Horizon | Depth (cm) | Description | ||
A1 | 0-10 | Very dark grey (5YR3/1 moist); light medium clay; self-mulching surface, rough faced peds (<10 mm); pH 6.9; clear and smooth boundary to: | ||
B21t | 10-30/40 | Very dark grey (5YR3/1 moist); medium heavy clay; strongly pedal, polyhedral structure with prominent small slickensides; pH 8.5; clear and wavy boundary to: | ||
B22ss | 30/40-65/75 | Dark reddish brown (5YR3/2 moist); medium clay; prismatic, polyhedral and lenticular structure, frequent large (>300 mm) slickensides; pH 9.2; wavy and abrupt to clear boundary to: | ||
B23kss | 65/75+ | Dark greyish brown (2.5Y4/2 moist) or grey (2.5Y5/1); light clay; with very large slickensides (up to 1 metre) and abundant large patches of whitish soft carbonate. | ||
Management considerations | ||||
Deep fertile soil with strongly structured surface. Shrinking and cracking constitutes a major hazard for engineering works (buildings, roads, power poles). Sodicity of the soil is high and this, coupled with the high clay content, will limit water movement through the profile. |
Site SW101 | Sample depth | pH | EC | NaCl | Ex Ca | Ex Mg | Ex K | Ex Na | Ex Al | Ex acidity | FC (-10kPa) | PWP (-150kPa) | KS | FS | Z | C | |
Horizon | cm | H2O | CaCl2 | dS/m | % | cmolc/kg | cmolc/kg | cmolc/kg | cmolc/kg | mg/kg | cmolc/kg | % | % | % | % | % | % |
A1 | 0-10 | 6.9 | 5.9 | 0.28 | 0.03 | 7.8 | 8.8 | 0.7 | 4.0 | N/R | N/R | 42.1 | 23.4 | 5.7 | 23.8 | 21 | 41 |
B21t | 15-30 | 8.5 | 7.8 | 0.92 | 0.15 | 11.0 | 15.0 | 1.0 | 16 | N/R | N/R | 74.2 | 36.7 | 3 | 10.8 | 22.5 | 54.5 |
B22ss | 40-60 | 9.2 | 8.6 | 1.0 | 0.20 | 8.7 | 14.0 | 1.0 | 17 | N/R | N/R | 61.4 | 34.3 | 4.6 | 21.8 | 35.5 | 32.5 |
Lovely Banks monocline in the basalt plain, view eastwards (You Yangs on the left). The road running across the image is the Bacchus Marsh-Geelong road. SW101 is situated in the pipeline trench near the road crossing | Trench section on the Lovely Banks Monocline slope showing shallower self mulching soil overlying highly calcareous subsoil |