acid sand

Robert Krejzl rkrejzl@hotmail.com
Tue, 09 Jul 2002 22:43:13 PDT

I am interested in the term acid sand. What makes it acidic? My background is obviously not geology but I have read quite a lot about various kinds of dirt (natually-occuring growing mediums) and what makes them acidic or alkaline but I cannot imagine an acid sand. Can you elaborate on this?

 
Gosh, I feel like Forrest trying to explain having seen rhododendrons growing on limestone.

I'm on a small deposit of sand at the mouth of one of the local rivers. It's very localised; people the other side of the road garden on clay. Most of the local rock seems to be acidic (though there islimestone and some fairly good caves an hour or so away), so the groundwateris acid (as is thetap water which I'd use for irrigation). In digging I haven't come across that many shells so I assume that the sand is mostly river derived. Think of it as being like the sandy soil around Wisley in the UK. Keep the water up throw nutrients at it and it's like a natural raised bed, very free-draining. In fact improbable seeming soils abound. The chalk downland south of London is crowned by pockets of acid woodland for example (the chalk is free-draining and erodes quickly, leaving behind flint nodules which isolate the developing soil from the chalk beneath).


Robert


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