USING SOIL GEOMORPHOLOGY TO UNLOCK THE SECRETS OF THE TERROIR OF WINE, ENVIRONMENTAL SAMPLING AND ALPINE SOIL DISTRIBUTIONS

My career in soils started with an incredible soil geomorphology course taught by Dr. Peter Birkeland. We all learned about chronosequences, but I learned many techniques that helped me branch out in soils. I used them to map alpine soil distribution based on plant, snowbank and gopher communities. The resulting alpine soil slope model is now in most soil geomorphology texts. Second, my studies led to the study of heavy metals and trace elements in soils and have resulted in sampling regimes for all soils based on pedology - sample the A horizon and the strongest B horizon for the maximum values in the soils. Finally, we have put together a story of the different terroir of wines (taste of the place) coming from different soil series. An example is the Willamette Valley of Oregon where different tastes of pinot noir and riesling wines come from the three major soil series: Jory Soil (volcanic soils); Willakenzie Soil (marine sediment soils); and Laurelwood Soil (pisolite rich volcanic soils of weathered loess). Soil geomorphology techniques have so many applications in other scientific disciplines.