A GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM (GIS) APPLICATION ON A DESCRIPTIVE SOIL COMPOSITION ANALYSIS OF ESMERALDA COUNTY, NEVADA WITH A FOCUS ON ITS STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY

Esmeralda County, Nevada is known for its historical gold mining background and lush farming community located between Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada, along Highway 95. My research focused on comparing the current soil compositional make-up of Esmeralda County, Nevada in contrast to the soil compositional make-up in the early 1980’s. My research aimed at constructing a soil analysis with a focus on the structural geology of the area and how they directly correlate with each other. Soil data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) - Natural Resources Conservation Service (NCRS) was used in conjunction with soil data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) - Soil Conservation Service in cooperation with the United States Department of Interior and the University of Nevada, Agricultural Experiment Station. Two bar graphs were composed to show the different soil types and two pie charts were composed to show the percentage make-up of the soil composition. Those numbers were then used to determine that there has been little change in soil composition over the course of 39 years by looking at the original geological structure of the area and current day environmental factors such as climate change, erosion, physical weathering and chemical weathering.