Assessment of Classification of Minesoils According to Soil Taxonomy and Icomanth Proposals.

The physical and chemical properties of minesoils are of vital interest to future land users because their properties are unique compared to surrounding native soils. For many land planners, soil surveys provide the classifications of soils in a particular area, which are intended to provide important information about the properties of a given soil. For decades, however, land users have complained that classifications according to Soil Taxonomy, the classification scheme used in the US, of minesoils and other anthropogenically-altered soils are non-descript and do not reflect the unique properties of these soils.

Minesoils mapped in the BSF were classified according to the eleventh edition of Keys to Soil Taxonomy to judge how well the classifications described the soils. Further, the same minesoils were classified according to the recently proposed amendments to Soil Taxonomy by the International Committee of Anthropogenic Soils (ICOMANTH): several of the recommendations of this group have been accepted by the Soil Survey Staff and incorporated into Soil Taxonomy over the past several years. Because the goal of ICOMANTH is to, as seamlessly as possible, adjust Soil Taxonomy to include anthropogenically-altered soils in general, it was important to assess whether the amendments were suited to descriptively classify coal minesoils, which sprawl over large tracts of land in the US. Additional recommendations were made and the minesoils were again classified according to these recommendations. Compared to both the Soil Taxonomy and the ICOMANTH classifications, those according to the proposed additional amendments revealed more of the unique properties of the minesoils studied in this project. The results of this effort can provide ICOMANTH and the Soil Survey Staff with field validation of the proposed amendments and with suggestions for further improvement.