Shawnee Hills Loess Catenas Project: A Central USA Major Land Resource Area (MLRA) Soil-Landscape Study.

Watershed-based soil landscape studies are on-going in Illinois and Indiana and a similar study is planned in Kentucky.  The area of study is the Shawnee Hills region, located within MLRA 120 (Kentucky and Indiana Sandstone and Shale Hills and Valleys) and a small portion of MLRA115B  (Central Mississippi Valley Wooded Hillslopes). These studies are linked by similar parent materials, land use characteristics, and common objectives.  Together, they represent a mechanism for the examination of soil landscapes, water movement, and the nature of pedogenesis in a landscape setting.  The emphases of these three studies include the documentation of key soil landscape relationships within the MLRA’s.  Specific overarching objectives of the Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky studies are (i) develop a model of soil distribution on selected benchmark landscapes; (ii) assess major factors controlling soil development, soil change and spatial variability, and (iii) determine variables that serve as markers of soil type, pedogenesis, metapedogenesis, and water movement such as clay distribution, soil color/redox features, and geochemistry.  The research is a cooperative effort between NRCS (State, MO11, MO18, and NSSC), Illinois State Geological Survey, US Forest Service, Purdue University, University of Kentucky, and the Kentucky Geological Survey. All participants are part of the National Cooperative Soil Survey and have a common interest in the future of soil science and the future of soil survey.   Carefully planned soil landscape studies like the Shawnee Hill Loess Catenas Project, are essential components of MLRA soil surveys.