The Art and Science of Soil-Landscape Block Diagrams: Examples of One Picture Being Worth More Than 1000 Words

摘要

Art has long been a necessary part of science, especially before the photographic era of the last 150 years. Famous historical examples of scientists that used art to represent their science are Leonardo DaVinci, Galileo, James John Audubon, and Charles Darwin, to name a few. Diagrams of soils have been and are still used to illustrate concepts of soil relationships, water movement, and geomorphology (Peterson, 1981; Hole and Campbell, 1985; Wysocki et al., 2005; Lin et al., 2005). The "heyday" of the use of block diagrams in soil surveys appears to be in the 1950s and 1960s. The two objectives of this article are to provide examples of line art, both landscapes and profiles, from soil surveys of the 20th century and to demonstrate that soil-landscape diagrams and soil-landscape models are a timeless, central component of soil survey and soil science.