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Other publications
Australian Soils and Landscapes:
An Illustrated
Compendium
This
essential reference provides an introduction to the remarkable
soils and landscapes of Australia. It reveals their great diversity
and explains why an understanding of soil properties and landscape
processes should guide our use of the land.
Using striking photographs of characteristic landscapes, it begins by describing the basic properties of soils and how Australia's distinctive soils and landscapes have co-evolved. We gain a greater understanding of why particular soils occur at certain locations and how soil variation can influence landscape processes, agricultural productivity and ecosystem function. The book explains the impact of various forms of land use and the changes they can bring about in soil.
This is followed by an invaluable compendium that describes and illustrates over 100 of the more important and widespread soils of Australia, along with their associated landscapes. There is a brief account of each soil's environment, usage and qualities as well as details on chemical and physical properties so we can make more informed decisions about appropriate land-use.
Australian Soils and Landscapes (McKenzie, Jacquier, Isbell and Brown 2004) will be a valuable resource for farmers, natural resource managers, soil and environmental scientists, students and anyone with an interest in Australia's unique environment.
Australian Soils and Landscapes: an illustrated compendium is available from CSIRO Publishing.
Field Guide for Describing Regolith and Landforms
The use of standard terminology for the characterisation of site attributes, such as landform and vegetation, and for the description of regolith has obvious benefits for the various organisations in Australia concerned with regolith investigations. Some uniformity in the description of regolith has been achieved over the years with the publication of RTMAP Regolith Database Field Book and Users Guide (Pain et al. 1991, 2007), Regolith landform mapping in the Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia: towards a standardised approach (Craig et al. 1999) and Genesis, classification and atlas of ferruginous materials, Yilgarn Craton (Anand et al. 2002). Because there are a number of possible approaches (for example, in setting class limits) for many attributes, the classes adopted here are taken, where possible, from Australian standards—and in particular The Australian Soil and Land Survey Field Handbook (McDonald et al. 1990, NCST 2008), which is considered to be most appropriate for Australian conditions.
This Guide is based largely on the field component of Pain et al. (2007). It covers a range of field observations that are convenient to measure or observe, and are relevant both to practical problems of mineral exploration and natural resource management, and the scientific study of regolith. Improvements will depend to a degree on the use of more systematic methods in the recording of field observations, in order to test the underlying, often un-stated models that often guide the recording of such observations. It is hoped that the use of this Guide will allow the development of more concise, or more relevant, field observations than those recommended in it. Improvements will come only from knowledge of the precise needs of clients.
Field Guide for Describing Regolith and Landforms (PDF - 3.2MB ) is available from CRC Landscape Environments and Mineral Exploration.