Modelling subsoil bulk density increase of Australian low activity clay soils

Ary Bruand (1) , Robert J. Gilkes (2)

1 ISTO - Institut des Sciences de la Terre d'Orléans
2 School of Earth and Geographical Sciences

In the Western Australian wheatbelt, the soils are predominantly strongly weathered and have poor physical properties for crop growth. Many of the fine textured subsoils have undesirable structural characteristics, the majority is sodic, highly dispersive and poorly permeable, and bulk densities greater than 1.7 g cm-3 are common at maximum swelling. This study aims at showing that the high bulk densities in clayey subsoils can have resulted from a process involving cycles of shrinking and swelling and the infilling of the vertical crack network of the subsoil with topsoil.

Domains: Continental interfaces, environment

Ary Bruand, Robert J. Gilkes. Modelling subsoil bulk density increase of Australian low activity clay soils. Workshop on Modelling of Pedogenesis, Oct 2006, Orléans, France. ⟨hal-00122581⟩