Soil Mineralogy

The paper presents the method and the actions carried out for the definition of thesoil mapping units of the Soil Map of Romania at the scale 1: 200,000 (SMR-200) using anextended terminology of the international soil classification system WRB (World ReferenceBase for Soil Resources 2006, update 2007):(1) Developing a" Notation" for a formalised definition of the SMR-200 Legend;(2) Transposing the original definitions (in Romanian natural language) of the soilmapping units (SMU) of the SMR-200 Legend into ...

The paper presents the method and the actions carried out for the definition of thesoil mapping units of the Soil Map of Romania at the scale 1: 200,000 (SMR-200) using anextended terminology of the international soil classification system WRB (World ReferenceBase for Soil Resources 2006, update 2007):(1) Developing a" Notation" for a formalised definition of the SMR-200 Legend;(2) Transposing the original definitions (in Romanian natural language) of the soilmapping units (SMU) of the SMR-200 Legend into ...

The genesis and micromorphology of three Harney soils from different precipitation regions (from 540mm to 715mm) (fine, smectitic,
mesic Typic Argiustolls) in the Smoky Hills of central Kansas were investigated. The objectives were to (1) examine the morphological,
chemical, physical and mineralogical characteristics of Harney soils formed in loess; (2) determine the clay mineral distribution with depth
and the origin of the clay minerals present; and (3) investigate the relationship between the clay mineralogy and other soil properties such as
soil plasmic fabric, COLE values and fine clay/total clay ratios. Mineralogical and micromorphological techniques were used to evaluate the
characteristics of the loess-derived soils. The first pedon was formed in 88cm of Bignell loess over Peoria loess and the other two pedons
were formed from Peoria loess. The chemical properties were similar for the pedons studied. Differences were observed in physical
properties, especially in particle size distribution, oven-dry bulk density and coefficient of linear extensibility values. Although the soils were
mapped in the same soil series, the geomorphic positions of the pedons and the nature of the parent material affected the characteristics of the
soils. Smectite was the predominant clay mineral, especially in the fine clay fraction, regardless of the location in the precipitation gradient.
The dominance of smectite increased in the C-horizons. This implies a detrital source of smectite in the B-horizons formed in both Bignell
and Peoria loess units. The presence of randomly interstratified mica-smectite and the micromorphological observations of weathering biotite
indicate that weathering also plays an important role in the mineralogy of Harney soils. The high content of clay mica in the surface horizons
was caused by dust fall in the study area. Thick and continuous argillans were observed when FC/TC and COLE values were low and
crystalline smectite was present. In the lower part of the soil profiles, the plasmic fabric was mostly ma-skelsepic (granostriated b-fabric) and
smectite was more crystalline as indicated by sharper X-ray diffraction peaks.

"The present article constitutes a review of the innovative approaches and results
obtained in the ADAM project, dedicated to the „Assimilation of spatial Data into
Agronomic Models”, a scientific collaboration between France and Romania. The
results mainly refer to the following aspects: (i) constitution of the first reference
spatial remote sensing and agronomic knowledge base for scientific investigation;
(ii) production of a SPOT XS/XI time series of high quality satellite images; (iii)
validation of a method for monitoring soil surface moisture throughout crop
phenological cycles, using SAR (ERS-2 and RADARSAT-1) images and the “water
cloud” model; (iv) definition of the revisit frequency of satellites for the field-scale
agriculture; (v) development of an efficient strategy of variational assimilation of
spatial data into agronomic models, by exploiting the high spatial coherence that
characterizes the crops during their development; (vi) calculation of the adjoint
model of the complex canopy functioning model STICS by automatic
differentiation; (vii) improvement of the canopy radiative transfer modeling by
accounting for the leaf clumping, and elaboration of the CLAMP model.
Furthermore, this article presents other studies led to valorize the “ADAM
knowledge” after this project had finished. These are primarily related to the
development of pattern analysis algorithms (i.e., advanced data mining for efficient
extraction of information on spatio-temporal phenomena from Satellite Image Time
Series / SITS, and data fusion for multi-resolution decomposition, by using the
morphological pyramid technique), which the high quality of the ADAM knowledge
base made possible.
Being free for scientific studies, with easy access through the Kalideos Portal, the
ADAM knowledge base still has the potential to produce other notable findings
(http://kalideos.cnes.fr/spip.php?article68)."