A Pedological Tale III: Where Have the Years Gone?

摘要

In 1986, the predecessor of Soil Horizons was a hardcopy publication by the name of Soil Survey Horizons (SSH). This 6- by 9-inch black-and-white publication was a vehicle to discuss ideas, experiences, findings, and philosophies related to the studyof soils in the field. In the 1986 summer issue of SSH (Indorante, 1986), Sam Indorante introduced a fictional field soil scientist named Turtle (Fig. 1) in an article titled "A Pedological Tale." Turtle was a new field soil scientist struggling with thetask of mapping natural segments of the landscape while reckoning with the classes of Soil Taxonomy. When Turtle focused solely on taxonomic classes, the resulting soil maps were a mish-mash of small polygons with little relationship to natural segments, or what is commonly known as a "hole mapping."