User:Paleorthid

Introduction

I serve as webmaster for nscss.org and found wikipedia through slashdot.

I am a soil science consultant located in Washington. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Soil and Water Science from the University of California, Davis. I will be attending my Soils 105 30-year reunion in 2005. Soils 105 was a 6 week summer field course in pedology conducted jointly with University of California, Berkeley, and, when I took it, taught by Rod Arkley, Gene Begg and Gordon Huntington.

One feature of the course that year was a tour of the Mendocino County pygmy forest conducted by Hans Jenny who was 77 years old at the time, but bright eyed and physically capable of out walking us as he took us up the hill to each successfully older marine terrace. Each terrace had beach deposits about 100,000 years older than the one below it. Parent material, climate, organismic influence and topography were the same for all five terraces. A perfect lab to isolate the effect of time as a soil forming factor.

My user name reflects the fact that I spent a good many years mapping soils in the deserts and xeric shrublands of the western US in support of mine reclamation, irrigation development and treaty water rights. A Paleorthid is a desert soil type that has been around long enough to have developed character. My career turned from soil survey to being an agricultural consultant dispensing fertilizer recommendations and irrigation advice. That turned into yet another career change to working with food processors to land apply industrial wastewater, using crop and soil functions to protect water quality. I also delineate and help restore wetlands, conduct audits of the functions and values in riparian areas, conduct Phase I (ASTM) environmental property audits for contamination, prescribe loading rates for municipal biosolids, conduct "post-mortems" on failed septic systems and volunteer in support of soil and water conservation activities with my local conservation district.

External links

1. National Society of Consulting Soil Scientists
2. International Union of Soil Sciences Website, affiliated with ICSU