Soil strength analysis of Sonoran Desert landforms

Abstract

Connecting landforms to soil strength parameters can enable the prediction of soil bearing capacity and shear strength-important information for mobility and dust emission modeling. This project aimed to relate soil strength metrics to geomorphic landforms, focusing on five alluvial and aeolian landform classes in the Sonoran Desert. To achieve this, a variety of soil strength, dust emission, and soil texture measurements were made at 47 sites in California and Arizona; and these data were compared with landform classifications. Measurements of soil bearing capacity and shear strength varied significantly between landform classes. The aeolian landforms had significantly lower bearing capacity and shear strength than the alluvial landforms. The alluvial fan landform demonstrated consistently high soil strength, whereas the alluvial plain landform had relatively high mean soil strength but extreme site variability. The aeolian landforms were dominated by sand, whereas the alluvial landforms presented variable particle size distributions extending into loam and silt-loam classes. Silt and clay content were positively correlated with soil strength across all sites, while sand content was negatively correlated. Only the near-surface soil strength measures from the pocket penetrometer, Torvane, and vane shear correlated with dust emission flux and susceptibility.

Terrestrial Geospatial Remote Assessment for Ingress Locations (Terrestrial GRAIL)

“…Soil strength, dust emission, and soil composition measurements were made at 42 sites in California and Arizona, and these data were compared with geomorphic landform classifications (Shoop et al 2018a). Metrics of soil bearing capacity (i.e., Clegg hammer and cone penetrometers) and of soil shear strength (i.e., vane shear) varied significantly between landform types.…”

“…Comparison of select soil strength measurements with landform type (fromShoop et al 2018a). Bay, Canada, Joint Task Force North austere landing on sea ice documented Operation NUNALIVUT 2014, conducted by Joint Task Force North during March and April of 2014, in the vicinity of Resolute Bay, Nunavut Territory, Canada.…”

Preliminary assessment of landform soil strength on glaciated terrain in New Hampshire

“…Geomorphological processes form the very basis of soil formation and development; once these processes and the landforms are understood, they can provide insight into the currently unknown internal soil properties. Previous studies have attempted to link landforms with soil characteristics (Harden 1982, McDonald et al 2013, Shoop et al 2018. However, these efforts were mainly focused on desert aeolian and alluvial landforms.…”