13. Shallow and sandy weakly developed soils/Strike ridges and valleys: Cuesta landscapes

This soil has developed on mainly Palaeozoic sandstone and colluvial material in the Western Uplands, primarily on the Grampian Ranges.

The surface soil is usually a grey or brown loamy sand which is weakly structured. It overlies a conspicuously bleached loamy sand to sandy loam subsurface horizon. This is massive to weakly structured and contains many coarse grained quartz sand. There may be a gradual to clear change to a yellow brown silty or clay loam. This is moderately structured (with medium sized peds), often with some quartz or rock fragments or grading directly into lighter textured subsoil which is apedal (sandy) and then weathered parent material (sandstone). The profile depth is about 70 cm or more with variable depths of the surface horizons, generally 5-15 cm for the surface and 10-20 cm for the subsurface, often deeper.

Notable features include:

• Gradational or uniform change in clay percentage with depth.
• Variable depth to parent material (may be shallow).
• Occasional indurated or accumulation zones with in the predominantly coarse soil (Podosols).
• These soils have low nutrient capacity and low water holding capacity.
• These features make these soils vulnerable to erosion, particularly on sloping terrain given low consistence/coherence and lighter surface materials.