Soil Properties: Texture

Soil Texture: The relative proportions of sand, silt, and clay particles in a mass of soil (material less than 2mm in size).

Very Coarse Sand = 2 to 1 mm

Very Fine Sand = 0.1 to 0.5 mm

Silt = 0.05 to 0.002 mm

Clay = < 0.002 mm

Next slide Back to first slide View graphic version

Notes:

This section reefers to the USDA Soil Textural Classification System, it differs from other systems such as ASSHTO, Unified, and PHI). For complete information go to:

http://www.statlab.iastate.edu/soils/ssm/chap3av.html

Material smaller than 2 mm diameter is called the fine earth fraction, particles larger than 2 mm are rock fragments.

The complete break-down of fine earth fractions are:

Very coarse sand: 2.0-1.0 mm Coarse sand: 1.0-0.5 mm Medium sand: 0.5-0.25 mmFine sand: 0.25-0.10 mm Very fine sand: 0.10-0.05 mm Silt: 0.05-0.002 mm Clay: < 0.002 mm