Featured Maps! Geological maps: from agriculture to watersheds

Theme for the week:

Geological maps:  from agriculture to watersheds

Date: January 28-February 8, 2019

Geologic survey maps show the spread of soil types in a region and can be some of the most detailed maps in our collection. They show the overabundance of variability that can occur in a single small space, or the greater picture how different soil deposits can form on a national level.

These soil types carry information about the history and the process that formed the topography. In California, we benefit from the mineral rich alluvium deposited in the Central Valley by rivers running off the Sierra Nevada and Coastal Range. This is one of the main contributors to California’s extensive agricultural production.

The implications that can be drawn from these maps are prevalent for research communities involved with studies ranging from agricultural production to environmental protection to watershed science. Information about regional soils can help researchers to better understand what may have existed in the past for a given area; if there use to be lakes or volcanic activity or glaciers.

These maps will include a large and colorful legend to delineate between the types of soil. Most often the soil categories are broken down by the age of the rock on a geologic timescale and by mechanism of deposition.

Come to the Map Collection and look for this sign:

Maps

Title: The National Atlas of the United States of America : Geology

by United States Geologic Survey (2007)

Call Number: MAP G3701.C5 2007 .G4 (with explanatory text)

Title: Nevada Shaded Relief Map

by Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology (1998)

Call Number:  MAP G4351.C2 1998 .J6

Title:  Origin and distribution of United States soils

by United States. Civil Aeronautics Administration.; Purdue University. Engineering Experiment Station.; and Donald J. Belcher and Associates.  (1946)

Call Number:  MAP G3701.J3 1946 .U5

Title: Principal Kinds of Soils, orders, suborders, and great groups : national cooperative soil survey classification of 1967

by United States Geologic Survey (1985)

Call Number:  MAP G3701.J3 1985 .U6

Title: Soil Map, California : Reconnoissance [sic] survey of the Sacramento Valley, California (Old Map)

by United States Department of Agriculture (1913)

Call Number:  MAP G4362.S33J3 1913 .U5 Old maps

Title: A Tapestry of Time and Terrain

by United States Geologic Survey (2000)

Call Number:  MAP G3701.C5 2000 .V4

(online version:  https://pubs.usgs.gov/imap/i2720/)

Title: USDA Emergency Rubber Project Guayule Soil Classification:  San Joaquin Valley

by United States Department of Agriculture (1943)

Call Number:  MAP G4362.S4J3 1943 .E6

Title:  Watersheds of California

by Amber Manfree (2010)

Call Number:  MAP G4361.C315 2010 .M36