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AN EXAMINATION OF CATION BALANCE AND MOISTURE CHARACTERISTIC METHODS OF DETERMINING THE STABILITY OF SOIL AGGREGATES
Author(s) -
COLLISGEORGE N.,
SMILES D. E.
Publication year - 1963
Publication title -
journal of soil science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.244
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1365-2389
pISSN - 0022-4588
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2389.1963.tb00927.x
Subject(s) - moisture , organic matter , soil water , stability (learning theory) , aggregate (composite) , chemistry , wetting , circumstantial evidence , water content , soil science , thermodynamics , materials science , environmental science , geology , geotechnical engineering , composite material , organic chemistry , physics , machine learning , computer science , political science , law
Summary For artificially reconstituted aggregates of soils low in organic matter the definitions of the stability of structure in terms either of cation balance and cation concentration of the ambient solution or of the drainage moisture contentsuction relationship characteristic after slow wetting are consistent. Identified factors of organic matter and of heating and drying (or drying alone) confer a structural stability on aggregates which can be detected by the moisture characteristic method. There is circumstantial evidence to suggest that the organic matter must be in equilibrium with vegetation. Since more than one factor affect structural stability, and since any particular method of distinguishing between different degrees of this stability may not necessarily suit the range of stabilities presented, the independent identification of soils, known to behave with differing aggregate structural stability in the field, is not necessarily possible with any laboratory method which describes changes in structural stability.