Soil Classification
Geotechnical engineers classify the soil particle types by performing tests on disturbed (dried, passed through sieves, and remolded) samples of the soil. This provides information about the characteristics of the soil grains themselves. It should be noted that classification of the types of grains present in a soil does not account for important effects of the structure or fabric of the soil, terms that describe compactness of the particles and patterns in the arrangement of particles in a load carrying framework as well as the pore size and pore fluid distributions. Engineering geologists also classify soils based on their genesis and depositional history.
Read more about this topic: Soil Mechanics
Famous quotes containing the word soil:
“Our own country furnishes antiquities as ancient and durable, and as useful, as any; rocks at least as well covered with lichens, and a soil which, if it is virgin, is but virgin mould, the very dust of nature. What if we cannot read Rome or Greece, Etruria or Carthage, or Egypt or Babylon, on these; are our cliffs bare?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)