Official Series Description


Lab Data Summary

Aggregate lab data for the POLYCHROME soil series. This aggregation is based on all pedons with a current taxon name of POLYCHROME, 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 POLYCHROME were used in the calculation. Source: KSSL snapshot . Methods used to assemble the KSSL snapshot used by SoilWeb / SDE

There are insufficient data to create the lab data summary figure.


Water Balance

Monthly water balance estimated using a leaky-bucket style model for the POLYCHROME 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 POLYCHROME 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 POLYCHROME 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 POLYCHROME 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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Competing Series

Soil series competing with POLYCHROME 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 POLYCHROME 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 POLYCHROME 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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Soil series sharing subgroup-level classification with POLYCHROME, 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

No block diagrams are available.

Map Units

Map units containing POLYCHROME 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
Badland-Polychrome-Rock outcrop complex, 50 to 75 percent slopes31887506259jzsyco69219981:24000
Polychrome-Milok complex, 8 to 50 percent slopes441632506265jzt4co69219981:24000
Polychrome-Paradox association, 8 to 40 percent slopes1843459505455jyz0ut04719991:24000
Badland-Polychrome-Rock outcrop complex, 50 to 75 percent slopes102196505362jyw0ut04719991:24000
Bullpen-Polychrome complex, 2 to 50 percent slopes321280505572jz2sut04719991:24000
Polychrome-Milok complex, 8 to 50 percent slopes1831029505454jyyzut04719991:24000
Remorris family-Polychrome family-Rock outcrop complex, 0 to 30 percent slopes421824633319406430nhgut6251:24000
Polychrome-Badland-Cerropelon family complex, 15 to 60 percent slopes6425626084601ifswut68519901:24000
Polychrome family-Badland, Chinle Formation-Gaddes family complex, 15 to 60 percent slopes51019308597382051ut68620041:24000

Map of Series Extent

Approximate geographic distribution of the POLYCHROME 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 .