Soil texture triangle, showing the 12 major textural classes, and particle size scales.

Soil texture is a soil property used to describe the relative proportion of different grain sizes of mineral particles in a soil. Particles are grouped according to their size into what are called soil separates (clay, silt, and sand). The soil texture class (eg. sand, clay loam, etc) corresponds to a particular range of separate fractions, and is diagramatically represented by the soil texture triangle. Coarse textured soils contain a large proportion of sand, medium textures are dominated by silt, and fine textures by clay. Soil is the material on the surface of a lithosphere subject to weathering, and especially the earthy portion of that material. ... This article deals with grain size in the context of geology, see crystallite for grain size in materials science. ... Minerals are natural compounds formed through geological processes. ... Quaternary clay in Estonia. ... Silt refers to soil or rock particles of a certain very small size range (see grain size). ... Patterns in the sand Sand is an example of a class of materials called granular matter. ...

Soil separate

A soil separate is a specific range of particle sizes. The larger sizes are described as coarse, intermediate as medium, and the smaller as fine. (Different methods of soil texture classification define the separates slightly differently.)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, also called the Agriculture Department, or USDA, is a Cabinet department of the United States Federal Government. ...

Major texture classes

There are 12 major texture classes:

• Sand
• Silt
• Clay
• Loam
• Loamy sand
• Sandy loam
• Sandy clay loam
• Sandy clay
• Silt loam
• Clay loam
• Silty clay loam
• Silty clay

Patterns in the sand Sand is an example of a class of materials called granular matter. ... Silt refers to soil or rock particles of a certain very small size range (see grain size). ... Quaternary clay in Estonia. ... Loam is soil composed of a relatively even mixture of three mineral particle size groups: sand, silt, and clay. ...

References

• Soil Texture, by R. B. Brown, University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.