LOCATION MARCIAL NMEstablished Series
TAXONOMIC CLASS: Fine, illitic, thermic Typic Haplocambids
TYPICAL PEDON: Marcial silty clay loam, range. (Colors are for dry soil unless otherwise noted.)
Az--0 to 6 inches; reddish brown (5YR 5/4) heavy silty clay loam; dark reddish brown (5YR 3/4) moist; moderate thick platy structure; hard, friable, slightly sticky, slightly plastic; common fine roots; common fine vesicular pores; strongly calcareous with calcium carbonate disseminated; moderately saline; moderately alkaline; few pinpoint size salt crystals; clear smooth boundary. (3 to 10 inches thick)
Bz--6 to 38 inches; reddish brown (2.5YR 5/4) silty clay, dark reddish brown (2.5YR 3/4) moist; moderate medium subangular blocky structure; very hard, firm, sticky, plastic; common fine roots to 24 inches; common fine pores; strongly calcareous with calcium carbonate disseminated; moderately saline; moderately alkaline; clear smooth boundary. (14 to 41 inches thick)
Cyz--38 to 52 inches; reddish brown (5YR 5/4) heavy silty clay loam, reddish brown (5YR 4/4) moist; massive; hard, friable, sticky, plastic; common interstitial pores; strongly calcareous with calcium carbonate disseminated as distinct threads; moderately saline; moderately alkaline; common fine gypsum crystals; abrupt wavy boundary. (3 to 26 inches thick)
2Cy--52 to 60 inches; pink (7.5YR 8/4) gypsum, pink (7.5YR 7/4) moist.
TYPE LOCATION: Socorro County, New Mexico; located in the northwest corner of the White Sands Missile Range about 2.2 miles southwest from Marcial site and Route 5 junction, on gravel road; on south side of a bar pit by well.
RANGE IN CHARACTERISTICS:
Mean annual soil temperature: 59 to 65 degrees F.
Reaction: slightly to strongly saline, from moderately to strongly alkaline
Calcium carbonate: moderately to strongly calcareous
Soil moisture: These soils are dry in most years more than 3/4 of the period the soil temperature exceeds 41 degrees F. at depth of 20 inches. Typic aridic moisture regime.
A horizon
Hue: 2.5YR through 7.5YR
Value: 4 through 6 dry, 3 through 5 moist
Chroma: 3 or 4
B2 horizon
Hue: 2.5YR or 5YR
Value: 4 through 6 dry, 3 through 5 moist
Chroma: 3 or 4
Texture: silty clay loam or clay
Clay content: 35 to 60 percent
C horizon
Hue: 5YR or 7.5YR
Value: 5 through 7 dry, 4 through 6 moist
Chroma: 3 or 4
Texture: silt loam or silty clay to clay
COMPETING SERIES: There are no competing series.
GEOGRAPHIC SETTING: The Marcial soils are on nearly level fans, floodplains, and floors of lake basins at elevations of 4,000 to 4,700 feet. These soils formed in fine textured alluvial sediments from mixed sources but dominantly from shaly redbeds. The annual precipitation is about 8 to 10 inches with a summer maximum. The annual temperature is 58 to 64 degrees F.
GEOGRAPHICALLY ASSOCIATED SOILS: These are the competing Ubar and Oscura soils and the Mimbres and Sotim soils. The Mimbres and Sotim soils have 18 to 35 percent clay in the control section.
DRAINAGE AND PERMEABILITY: Moderately well drained; slow runoff; slow or very slow permeability.
USE AND VEGETATION: Used primarily for military research and for grazing by livestock. Native vegetation is principally alkali sacaton, chamiza, vine mesquite, burrograss, traces of seepweed and iodinebush. Large bare spots occupy about 50 percent of the area.
DISTRIBUTION AND EXTENT: Central New Mexico; the series is moderately extensive with a total of about 60,000 acres. MLRA 42.
MLRA SOIL SURVEY REGIONAL OFFICE (MO) RESPONSIBLE: Phoenix, Arizona
SERIES ESTABLISHED: Socorro County, White Sands Missile Range soil survey area, White Sands, New Mexico, 1970.
REMARKS: Even though flood water passes over the surface during late summer, the soil remains dry a large portion of the time in the moisture control section, due to slow permeability and lack of cracking.
Classified according to Soil Taxonomy Second Edition, 1999
ADDITIONAL DATA: S70NM-28-19-2. Riverside Laboratory.