AGRN 417
External links
Internet Glossary of Soil Science Terms
The Soil Science Society of America maintains an online glossary of common (and
uncommon) soil science terms. You can search or browse the entire glossary.
Official Soil Series Descriptions
The USDA-NRCS Soil Survey Division maintains an online database of the more
than 18,000 official soil series descriptions (OSD). These detailed soil series
descriptions are available for the entire United States. You can search or browse
the entire database.
Online Soil Survey Manuscripts
The USDA-NRCS Soil Survey Division has compiled an extensive collection of
electronic versions of soil survey manuscripts from across the US. All online soil
survey manuscripts are distributed as PDF files. Online soil survey manuscripts
are available for 34 of the 55 counties in
West Virginia. Additional electronic soil survey manuscripts are available
from the
WV NRCS.
Web Soil Survey
The USDA-NRCS provides this web-based, interactive access to soil data and
information produced by the National Cooperative Soil Survey. Web Soil Survey enables
users to analyze online soil maps and data for more than 95 percent of the nation’s
counties. West Virginia has map data for 53 of its 55 counties available through
Web Soil Survey. Web Soil Survey supports viewing and exploring the information
on the screen, printing maps with related soils and other information, generating
custom reports, saving the information to a hard drive, or downloading the data
for use in a geographic information system.
Soil Extent Mapping (SEM) Tool
This application is used to display maps of the spatial extent of soil series mapped
in the United States and Territories. The tool can map the extent of specific soil
series (e.g., Monongahela), of multiple soil series within a specified taxa of
Soil Taxonomy (e.g., Alfisols or Fragiudults), or of multiple soil series with
specified family-level taxonomic classes (e.g., siliceous mineralogy or mesic temperature
regime). Results are displayed as acres within each soil survey area (e.g., county).
Field Book for Describing and Sampling Soils
The USDA-NRCS Soil Survey Division created and compiled these “instructions,
definitions, concepts, and codes” to be “a field guide for making or reading soil
descriptions and sampling soils as presently practiced in the USA.” You can
also view the Field Book here.
WebElements—The Periodic Table on the WWW
Looking for an online periodic table for completing lab exercises? This may or
may not be the best online periodic table, but it is thorough and easy to navigate,
with lots of useful and interesting content, including a
printable version of the periodic table. If you are looking for a periodic
table that provides elemental valences (“oxidation states”), visit
this periodic table from the University of Akron. If you are looking for
information on the health and environmental effects for individual chemical elements,
visit
this periodic table from Lenntech.
Virtual Museum of Minerals and Molecules
The Virtual Museum of Minerals and Molecules is a collection of “3-D visualizations
of molecules and minerals designed for instructional use.” (NOTE: Viewing the 3-D
visualizations requires external plug-ins, which are freely available. Follow the
links at the bottom of their main page to download the appropriate plug-in.)