Releve Virginia Division of Natural Heritage, see http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/natural_heritage/documents/nh_plotform_instructions.pdf
Overall Taxon Cover Values are Automatically Calculated?
no
Plot Quality Fields:
Plot Validation Level
(2) classification plot: sufficient for inclusion in a classification revision
Overall Plot Vegetation Fields:
--no data--
Misc Fields:
Observation Narrative
Plot location: ca. 50 m. S. of Railroad ditch at a point ca. 100 m. W. of its junction with west ditch. Great Dismal Swamp NWR.
The plot contains draw-down vegetation occupying a seasonally flooded clearing being managed for "marsh restoration". Two other open depression wetlands, also of anthropogenic origin and supporting similar vegetation, were found elsewhere in the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. One of the latter is exposed in a powerline right-of-way, while the other resulted from a prescribed fire which burned out of control and destroyed thin, underlying peat. Although the vegetation of the basin wetlands is not entirely "natural", it seems likely that it simulates communities which once occupied burn disturbances and limesink depressions of the pre-settlement landscape.
0-2cm - Duff
2-10cm - dark brown, 100% organic humus, crumbly and dry
10-20cm - moist, sticky, highly decomposed humus, almost black
20-60cm - highly organic mineral soil w/ some sand and decomposed organic material (part muck, part fine sand and/or clay)
60-70cm - slate gray, clayey fine sand w/ undecomposed organic debris (pretty sure it's a mineral soil)
70cm - WATER TABLE
70-100cm - becoming dark slate-gray, very sticky, clayey fine sand (inorganic)
100-110cm - becoming light gray, less sticky, loamy fine sand
120cm - light gray, very sticky, clayey light sand (fine sandy clay)
