SOIL CORES

UNM has done extensive and varied work in the area near the ABCWUA diversion dam, where the wells are located. Isaiah Pedro, a graduate student working with Dr. Coonrod and Dr. Stormont of UNM has done much of the work with the soil data. The figure shown below was modified from an exhibit originally done in Excel by Isaiah Pedro. It depicts the soil cores at the Badger site. These cores help to illustrate the difficulty in interpolation. The soil deposition does not occur in tidy uniform layers, in terms of neither thickness nor of soil type.

Interpolation was done by hand. For example, poorly graded sand (SP) is found in the bottom layer in the east, west and center boring, so I created a bottom layer and a top layer for SP determined by the elevations in the individual cores. This went to zero thickness at the adjacent borings. However poorly graded sand also occurs in the top of the north core and in the middle of the east core. These occurrences of SP are unlikely to connect to the layer of SP at the bottom of the east, west and center cores, thus making the use of the ArcMap selection tool by soil type alone unworkable. Eleven soil layers were created consisting of a bottom and top layer.