LOCATION MOREHEAD KY+TN WV

Established Series
JMR/Rev MDJ
02/2016

MOREHEAD SERIES

The Morehead series consists of deep, somewhat poorly or moderately well drained, moderately permeable soils on stream terraces. They formed in old mixed alluvium or colluvium. Slopes range from 0 to 4 percent. The average annual precipitation is about 45 inches, and the average annual temperature is about 53 degrees F.

TAXONOMIC CLASS: Fine-silty, mixed, semiactive, mesic Aquic Hapludults

TYPICAL PEDON: Morehead silt loam--on a smooth 1 percent slope
in woods. (Colors are for moist soil.)

Ap--0 to 8 inches; brown (10YR 4/3) silt loam; weak fine and medium granular structure; friable; few roots; moderately acid; clear smooth boundary. (6 to 10 inches thick)

BA--8 to 18 inches; yellowish brown (10YR 5/6) silt loam; many medium faint mottles of light yellowish brown (10YR 6/4) and few fine distinct mottles of light brownish gray (10YR 6/2); weak fine and medium subangular blocky structure; friable; few roots; very strongly acid; gradual wavy boundary. (0 to 12 inches thick)

Bt1--18 to 30 inches; yellowish brown (10YR 5/6) silt loam; many medium faint mottles of strong brown (7.5YR 5/6) and common fine distinct mottles of light brownish gray (10YR 6/2); weak fine and medium subangular blocky structure; friable; few pores less than 2 mm in size; distinct patchy clay films on peds and faint patchy clay films along pores; few concretions less than 2 mm in size; very strongly acid; gradual wavy boundary. (10 to 15 inches thick)

Bt2--30 to 38 inches; yellowish brown (10YR 5/4) silt loam; many medium faint mottles of strong brown (7.5YR 5/6) and common fine distinct mottles of light brownish gray (10YR 6/2); weak fine and medium subangular blocky structure; friable; few pores less than 2 mm in size; thin discontinuous clay films on peds and along pores; very strongly acid; gradual wavy boundary. (10 to 15 inches thick)

Bt3--38 to 48 inches; light yellowish brown (10YR 6/4) silt loam; many medium faint mottles of strong brown (7.5YR 5/6) and light brownish gray (10YR 6/2); weak fine subangular blocky structure; friable; few pores less than 2 mm in size; thin discontinuous clay films in cavities; very strongly acid; gradual wavy boundary. (8 to 12 inches thick)

C--48 to 70 inches; pale brown (10YR 6/3) silt loam; many fine distinct mottles of strong brown (7.5YR 5/6), very dark grayish brown (10YR 3/2) and light gray (10YR 7/1); massive; firm; very strongly acid.

TYPE LOCATION:
Rowan County, Kentucky; 50 yards northeast of old barn which is 1 3/4 miles northwest of Cranston, Kentucky on Clear Fork Road; about 10 miles north of Morehead.

RANGE IN CHARACTERISTICS:
Thickness of the solum is 40 to 60
inches and depth to bedrock is 5 to 10 feet or more. The soil contains less than 15 percent coarse fragments, plus sand coarser than very fine sand in the solum. The reaction is very strongly
acid to strongly acid in all horizons except in surface layers
where lime has been added.

The A horizon has 10YR hue or 2.5Y, value of 4 or 5, and chroma of 2 through 4.

The matrix of the B horizon has hue of 2.5Y, 5Y, 10YR, or 7.5YR, value of 5 or 6, and chroma of 4 through 6. Mottles are in shades of gray or brown and the depth to mottles with chroma of 2 or less ranges from 8 to 24 inches. It is silt loam or light silty clay loam, and has weak to moderate subangular blocky structure.

The matrix of the C horizon has hue of 10YR or 2.5Y, value of 5 to 7, and chroma of 1 through 6. Mottles are in shades of gray or brown and some pedons are mottled without a dominant matrix color. It is silt loam, loam, or light silty clay loam and is stratified in some pedons.

COMPETING SERIES:
The Berea, Deputy, and Knobtop series are in the same family. Berea and Knobtop soils have bedrock at less than 40 inches. Deputy soils have 40 to 60 percent clay in the lower part of the solum.

GEOGRAPHIC SETTING: Morehead soils are on low terraces, alluvial fans and footslopes. Slope gradients are dominantly less than 4 percent and surfaces are plane to slightly concave. Morehead
soils formed in silty acid alluvium more than 5 feet thick, washed from silty soils of uplands formed in acid shale and siltstone. Near the type location, the average annual precipitation is about 45 inches and the average annual temperature is about 53 degrees F.

GEOGRAPHICALLY ASSOCIATED SOILS:
These are the Bonnie, Cranston, Cuba, Elk, Monongahela, Steff, Stendal, Tilsit, and Whitley series. Bonnie, Cuba, and Stendal soils lack argillic horizons. Cranston, Cuba, Elk, and Whitley soils are all well drained. Monongahela and Tilsit soils have fragipans and are moderately well drained.

DRAINAGE AND PERMEABILITY:
Somewhat poorly and moderately well drained. Runoff is slow and permeability is moderate.

USE AND VEGETATION:
Most areas are in corn, pasture, or hay. Forested areas are in sycamore, bottom-land post oak, yellow-poplar, sweetgum, river birch, alder, and sedges.

DISTRIBUTION AND EXTENT:
Mountains and eastern Penny Royal areas in Kentucky and West Virginia. Extent is moderate.

MLRA SOIL SURVEY REGIONAL OFFICE (MO) RESPONSIBLE: MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA

SERIES ESTABLISHED: Estill and Lee Counties, Kentucky; 1969.

National Cooperative Soil Survey
U.S.A.