LOCATION ENSENADA PREstablished Series
TAXONOMIC CLASS: Clayey-skeletal, mixed, superactive, isohyperthermic Calcidic Argiustolls
TYPICAL PEDON: Ensenada gravelly clay - sugarcane
(Colors are for most soil unless otherwise stated.)
Ap--0 to 5 inches; dark reddish brown (5YR 3/3) gravelly clay; moderate fine granular structure; firm, sticky, plastic; many fine roots; few cobbles and rocks in the surface; 40 percent limestone gravel; slight effervescence, mildly alkaline; clear smooth boundary. (4 to 7 inches thick)
Bt1--5 to 11 inches; dark reddish brown (5YR 3/4) gravelly clay; moderate fine subangular blocky structure; firm, sticky, plastic; common fine roots; common thin patchy clay films; 40 percent limestone gravel; slight effervescence, mildly alkaline; clear smooth boundary. (5 to 8 inches thick)
Bt2--11 to 60 inches; yellowish red (5YR 5/8) very gravelly clay; massive; friable, sticky, plastic; 60 percent by volume of horizon is rounded and subrounded limestone gravel coated with clay and calcium carbonate; violent effervescence, moderately alkaline.
TYPE LOCATION: Sur SCD, Puerto Rico, 100 feet west of kilometer marker 3.75 of Highway No. 335.
RANGE IN CHARACTERISTICS: Thickness of the solum is more than 60 inches. The amount of limestone gravel in the solum ranges from 35 to 60 percent by volume.
The A horizon has hue of 5YR or 7.5YR, value of 3 and chroma of 2 or 3.
The Bt horizon has in hue of 5YR or 2.5YR, value of 3, 4, or 5 and chroma of 4 and higher.
COMPETING SERIES: There are no other series in the same family.
GEOGRAPHIC SETTING: The Ensenada soils occur on a truncated remnant of a fluvial deposit adjacent to the limestone hills with a slope gradient of 2 to 12 percent. The soil formed in a mixture of clay and rounded gravels. The climate is semiarid. The mean annual precipitation ranges from 20 to 30 inches and the mean annual temperature is 80 degrees F.
GEOGRAPHICALLY ASSOCIATED SOILS: These soils occupy a unique area in that there are no associated soils.
DRAINAGE AND PERMEABILITY: Well drained; medium runoff; moderate permeability.
USE AND VEGETATION: Irrigated sugarcane or pasture.
DISTRIBUTION AND EXTENT: Semiarid coastal plain of Puerto Rico. This series is of minor extent.
MLRA SOIL SURVEY REGIONAL OFFICE (MO) RESPONSIBLE: Raleigh, North Carolina
SERIES ESTABLISHED: Puerto Rico; l936.
REMARKS: Prior to this revision, this series included deep soils with gravel, red soils shallow to limestone rock and limestone rock land.
Diagnostic horizons and features recognized in this pedon are:
Mollic epipedon - zone from 0 to 5 inches (Ap horizon)
Argillic horizon - zone from 5 to 60 inches (Bt1, Bt2 horizons)