ENVB 210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Hygroscopy, Parent Material, Capillary Fringe
7 Feb 2018
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Document Summary
Air: o2 and co2 are exchanged between the soil and the atmosphere. Rusty stain means mottling: result of imperfect drainage oxidizing/reducing conditions. Below the table, the soil is saturated with water. Examples of parent material that can be saturated with water: marine/alluvial clay, limestone, glacial till. This zone is called an unconfined aquifer because the water table goes up and down: this creates problems with wells in those zones well can dry out or can easily become polluted with contaminated water. Capillary fringe is in the unsaturated zone because it moves with adhesion and cohesion of water molecules. Water adhesion is better with particles that are charged. Drainage in compacted soils is bad because the water is trapped in the micropores and cannot get down. The amount of water hold depends on the soil type, om amount, porosity. To get rid of hygroscopic water we need to oven dry the soil. Water potential describes the energy status in soils.
