Technical Information for Soil Scientists

Technical information on this site is intended primarily for the project soil scientist mapping soils in the field.  The NASIS Excel spreadsheets listed below are designed to record and develop basic soils data in preparation for input into NASIS. Contact Steve Campbell if you have questions or to make suggestions for improvement. 

GIS Resources for MO-1 Soil Scientists

Technical Notes - MO-1 Technical Notes in pdf format

The following documents require Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft Excel.

 Pedon Thunderbook (PDF, 1.1 MB) Guide for entering NASIS Pedon and Site data
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NASIS Entry Excel Spreadsheet - Version 7d (Updated January 23, 2008) (XLS, 880 KB) 
Version 7d is identical to the previous version 7 except for a correction made to the rock fragment volume to weight conversion for horizons that contain both cobbles and stones.  It uses the MO-1 NASIS guides that were in the original 2003 version of MO-1 Technical Note 40.

NASIS Entry Excel Spreadsheet Instructions - Version 7d  (Updated January 23, 2008) (PDF, 32 KB)
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NASIS Entry Excel Spreadsheet - Version 8d (Updated November 26, 2008) (XLS, 680 KB) 
Version 8d contains updated calculations for liquid limit, plasticity index, linear extensibility percent, and available water capacity, based on extensive analyses of laboratory data for Pacific Northwest soils.  These updated calculations are included in the MO-1 NASIS Guides for these data elements in MO-1 Technical Note 40 dated August 9, 2007.

NASIS Entry Excel Spreadsheet Instructions - Version 8  (Updated August 9, 2007)  (PDF, 32 KB)
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Pedon Description Form (XLS, 45 KB)

Conventional and Special Symbols Legend (SOI-37A)  (XLS, 4.5 MB)

NASIS Worksheets (XLS, 310 KB)  This spreadsheet contains worksheets for many NASIS tables.  The worksheets are similar to those issued in the original MO-1 NASIS Thunderbook.

National Soil Survey Laboratory (NSSL) and Official Series Description Data for the Pacific Northwest

Documents in this section require a compression utility that can read .zip files.

 NSSL Data for the Pacific Northwest - this file contains a Microsoft Access database of laboratory data for all pedons sampled for NSSL  analyses in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington through March 2008 (ZIP, 9.9 MB).  Tables within the database contain the data dictionary.  Please contact Steve Campbell if you have any questions about using the database, or would like assistance in writing queries to extract particular data.

NSSL Lab Pedon Location Geodatabase - this file contains a point feature class in a personal geodatabase (UTM NAD 83 Zone 11 projection) of National Soil Survey Laboratory pedon locations in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington through February 2009 (ZIP, 405 KB).

Official Series Descriptions Typical Pedon Location Geodatabase - this file contains a point feature class in a personal geodatabase (UTM NAD 83 Zone 11 projection) of Official Series Descriptions (OSD) typical pedon locations in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington through February 2009 (ZIP,  442 KB).
 

NASIS Legends for Idaho, Oregon, and Washington

The following documents require Microsoft Excel.

These spreadsheet files contain NASIS legends for Idaho, Oregon, and Washington soil survey areas as of April 2009.  They include area symbol, area name, survey status, geographic applicability, certification status, and responsible NASIS site (MO).

PNW NASIS Legends - sorted by soil survey area symbol (XLS, 54 KB)

PNW NASIS Legends - sorted by soil survey area name (XLS, 54 KB)
 

Soil Scientist's Guide to Microsoft Access

Prepared by Paul Finnell, National Data Management Specialist

The following documents require Microsoft Word

   Table of Contents  (DOC, 204 KB)

   Chapter 1 - SSURGO Template  (DOC, 943 KB)

   Chapter 2 - Basic Access  (DOC, 6.2 MB)
 
   Chapter 3 - Advanced Techniques  (DOC, 1.8 MB)

   Chapter 4 - Pedon Access Techniques (DOC, 2.4 MB)

   Chapter 5 - ArcMap and the SSURGO Template (DOC, 2.0 MB)
 

Last Modified:  11/09/2009

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