Official Series Description


Lab Data Summary

Aggregate lab data for the ALTO soil series. This aggregation is based on all pedons with a current taxon name of ALTO, and applied along 1-cm thick depth slices. Solid lines are the slice-wise median, bounded on either side by the interval defined by the slice-wise 5th and 95th percentiles. The median is the value that splits the data in half. Five percent of the data are less than the 5th percentile, and five percent of the data are greater than the 95th percentile. Values along the right hand side y-axis describe the proportion of pedon data that contribute to aggregate values at this depth. For example, a value of "90%" at 25cm means that 90% of the pedons correlated to ALTO were used in the calculation. Source: KSSL snapshot . Methods used to assemble the KSSL snapshot used by SoilWeb / SDE

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Pedons used in the lab summary:

MLRALab IDPedon IDTaxonnameCINSSL / NASIS ReportsLink To SoilWeb GMap
133B88P010188TX225003Alto7Primary | Supplementary | Taxonomy | Pedon | Water Retention | Correlation | Andic Soil Properties31.5280552,-95.3455582

Water Balance

Monthly water balance estimated using a leaky-bucket style model for the ALTO soil series. Monthly precipitation (PPT) and potential evapotranspiration (PET) have been estimated from the 50th percentile of gridded values (PRISM 1981-2010) overlapping with the extent of SSURGO map units containing each series as a major component. Monthly PET values were estimated using the method of Thornthwaite (1948). These (and other) climatic parameters are calculated with each SSURGO refresh and provided by the fetchOSD function of the soilDB package. Representative water storage values (“AWC” in the figures) were derived from SSURGO by taking the 50th percentile of profile-total water storage (sum[awc_r * horizon thickness]) for each soil series. Note that this representation of “water storage” is based on the average ability of most plants to extract soil water between 15 bar (“permanent wilting point”) and 1/3 bar (“field capacity”) matric potential. Soil moisture state can be roughly interpreted as “dry” when storage is depleted, “moist” when storage is between 0mm and AWC, and “wet” when there is a surplus. Clearly there are a lot of assumptions baked into this kind of monthly water balance. This is still a work in progress.

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Sibling Summary

Siblings are those soil series that occur together in map units, in this case with the ALTO series. Sketches are arranged according to their subgroup-level taxonomic structure. Source: SSURGO snapshot , parsed OSD records and snapshot of SC database .

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Select annual climate data summaries for the ALTO series and siblings. Series are sorted according to hierarchical clustering of median values. Source: SSURGO map unit geometry and 1981-2010, 800m PRISM data .

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Geomorphic description summaries for the ALTO series and siblings. Series are sorted according to hierarchical clustering of proportions and relative hydrologic position within an idealized landform (e.g. top to bottom). Most soil series (SSURGO components) are associated with a hillslope position and one or more landform-specific positions: hills, mountain slopes, terraces, and/or flats. Proportions can be interpreted as an aggregate representation of geomorphic membership. The values printed to the left (number of component records) and right (Shannon entropy) of stacked bars can be used to judge the reliability of trends. Small Shannon entropy values suggest relatively consistent geomorphic association, while larger values suggest lack thereof. Source: SSURGO component records .

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There are insufficient data to create the 3D mountains figure.

There are insufficient data to create the 3D terrace figure.

There are insufficient data to create the 3D flats position figure.

Competing Series

Soil series competing with ALTO share the same family level classification in Soil Taxonomy. Source: parsed OSD records and snapshot of the SC database .

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Select annual climate data summaries for the ALTO series and competing. Series are sorted according to hierarchical clustering of median values. Source: SSURGO map unit geometry and 1981-2010, 800m PRISM data .

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Geomorphic description summaries for the ALTO series and competing. Series are sorted according to hierarchical clustering of proportions and relative hydrologic position within an idealized landform (e.g. top to bottom). Proportions can be interpreted as an aggregate representation of geomorphic membership. Most soil series (SSURGO components) are associated with a hillslope position and one or more landform-specific positions: hills, mountain slopes, terraces, and/or flats. The values printed to the left (number of component records) and right (Shannon entropy) of stacked bars can be used to judge the reliability of trends. Shannon entropy values close to 0 represent soil series with relatively consistent geomorphic association, while values close to 1 suggest lack thereof. Source: SSURGO component records .

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There are insufficient data to create the 3D hills figure.

There are insufficient data to create the 3D mountains figure.

Click the image to view it full size.

There are insufficient data to create the 3D flats position figure.

Soil series sharing subgroup-level classification with ALTO, arranged according to family differentiae. Hovering over a series name will print full classification and a small sketch from the OSD. Source: snapshot of SC database .

Block Diagrams

Click a link below to display the diagram. Note that these diagrams may be from multiple survey areas.

  1. TX-2010-11-03-38 | Houston County - 2002

    Typical pattern of soils and parent material in the Alto-Trawick general soil map unit (Soil Survey of Houston County, Texas; 2002).

  2. TX-2010-11-04-19 | San Augustine and Sabine Counties -

    Nacogdoches-Trawick-Alto association (Soil Survey of San Augustine and Sabine Counties, Texas).

Map Units

Map units containing ALTO as a major component. Limited to 250 records.

Map Unit Name Symbol Map Unit Area (ac) Map Unit Key National Map Unit Symbol Soil Survey Area Publication Date Map Scale
Alto fine sandy loam, 1 to 3 percent slopesAfB216557511430n2qtx00119701:20000
Alto loam, 0 to 1 percent slopesAlA2305751152tcnqtx00119701:20000
Alto clay loam, 0 to 1 percent slopesAa38885753022r7rltx07319491:20000
Alto loam, 0 to 1 percent slopesAb4455753032tcnqtx07319491:20000
Alto fine sandy loam, 1 to 3 percent slopesAfB1010057548330n2qtx22519941:24000
Alto fine sandy loam, 0 to 4 percent slopes210237575628m9zntx34719761:24000
Alto clay loam, 1 to 3 percent slopes4254157565030n2ptx34719761:24000
Alto clay loam, 0 to 1 percent slopes316725756392r7rltx34719761:24000
Alto loam, 1 to 3 percent slopesAoB2758575785mb4qtx42319871:24000
Alto clay loam, 1 to 3 percent slopesAtA8366189479230n2ptx61920071:24000

Map of Series Extent

Approximate geographic distribution of the ALTO soil series. To learn more about how this distribution was mapped, or to compare this soil series extent to others, use the Series Extent Explorer (SEE) application. Source: generalization of SSURGO geometry .