Soil Survey of
Nantucket County Massachusetts
The following map unit description is from the
published "Soil Survey of Nantucket County, Massachusetts"
ChB-Chilmark sandy loam, 3 to 8 percent slopes. This gently sloping, well drained soil is on toe slopes and side slopes. The areas of this soil are irregular in shape and range from 3 to 25 acres. Slopes are smooth and undulating and are mainly 200 to 1,000 feet long.
Typically, the surface layer is very dark grayish brown sandy loam about 10 inches thick. The subsoil is about 26 inches thick. The upper 21 inches is dark yellowish brown, light olive brown, and yellowish brown, friable sandy loam. The lower 5 inches of the subsoil and the entire substratum, to a depth of 60 inches or more, is multicolored layers of sandy clay loam, silty clay loam, silty clay, and clay.
Included with this soil in mapping are small areas of Evesboro, Nantucket, Plymouth, and Woodbridge Variant soils. Also included are areas of soils that have slopes of less than 3 percent or more than 8 percent. Included soils make up about 15 percent of this unit.
The permeability of this soil is moderately rapid in the surface layer and upper part of the subsoil and slow in the lower part of the subsoil and in the substratum. Available water capacity is moderate.
Grass covers many areas of this soil. Some areas are covered with woody plants. The soil is well suited to openland wildlife habitat and has fair suitability for most other nonfarm uses.
This soil is well suited to crops, hay, and pasture. Erosion is the main hazard for these uses. Erosion can be reduced by using minimum tillage and crop rotation, by farming on the contour, or by using a combination of these practices.
This Chilmark soil has essentially no limitations for use as building sites. Low strength limits use for local roads and streets, and the design of roads needs to include a base material suitable for supporting vehicular traffic. The use of the soil for septic tank absorption fields is limited by the slow permeability in the subsoil and substratum. Increasing the size of the typical absorption area helps to overcome this limitation.
Capability sbbclass IIe.
