Unit 3

Soil Architecture and Physical

Properties

Triangular diagram:

USDA Textural Classes of Soils

Common name of soils
(General texture)
Sandy soils (Coarse texture)

Loamy soils
coarse texture)

(Moderately

Loamy soils (Medium texture)

Loamy soils (Moderately fine

texture)

Clayey soils (Fine texture)

Sand (%)

Silt (%)

Clay (%)

Textural classes

86-100

0-14

0-10

Sand

70-86

0-30

0-15

Loamy sand

50-70

0-50

0-20

Sandy loam

23-52

28-50

7-27

Loam

20-50

74-88

0-27

Silty loam

0-20

88-100

0-12

Silt

20-45

15-52

27-40

Clay loam

45-80

0-28

20-35

Sandy clay loam

0-20

40-73

27-40

Silty clay loam

45-65

0-20

35-55

Sandy clay

0-20

40-60

40-60

Silty clay

0-45

0-40

40-100

Clay

Soil Structure

Effect of Texture and Structure on

Porosity
Spheres in closest packing result in a porosity of
26 percent, and spheres in open packing have a
porosity of 48 percent.
Stated in another way, a ball that just fits in a box
occupies 52 percent of the volume of the box,
whereas 48 percent of the volume is empty space.
These facts are true regardless of size of the
spheres or balls.

Singlegrained sands have a porosity of about 40 percent.

This suggests that the sand particles are not perfect spheres
and the sand particles are not in a perfect close packing
arrangement.

The low porosity of single-grained sands is related to the

absence of structure (peds) and, therefore, an absence of
interped spaces.

Fine-textured A horizons, or surface soils, have a wide range of

particle sizes and shapes, and the particles are usually arranged
into peds.

This results in pore spaces within and between peds.

These A horizons with well-developed granular structure may

have as much as 60 percent porosity and bulk density values as
low as 1.0 g/cm3.

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