Soil Profile

this is our soil profile. at least in this one place in our two and a half acres. it is the same about 40 feet away. imagine my surprise. i expected rocks. everywhere else i have lived there have been rocks. sometime big ones. often jagged. oh, there are a few rocks here. granite. agate. all worn round. well, irregularly smooth. like stones on a beach or in a river, but in the soil here. there is about six inches of dark topsoil at the top of this profile. i think that the original forest was cleared about 20 years ago and the area around this hole was graded about twelve years ago, and has been a mown grass field since then. the dirt under that is sandy clay, or clayey sand.

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this is a picture of a bluff on port townsend bay not far away, looking up about 75 feet to the top. we are looking at about 20 feet of exposed soil at the top, sandy clay with no rocks, a darker layer on top and a lighter, deeper layer just below. this bluff further along, and others we have observed, have thin layers of rounded, water worn rocks. in other local places the sandstone is visible more than 60 feet deep. so we pretty much live on sand stone. or just sand.



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