Applications

Abstract

More and more workers in subjects such as agriculture, archeology and engineering are discovering that thin sections of soils and unconsolidated materials can yield very useful information. On the one hand these data can be used in an analytical or interpretative manner and on the other to predict behaviour. Thus the information required and obtained from thin sections is very variable and determined by the requirements of the particular discipline using thin sections. This is a brief outline of some of the many applications of thin sections and it attempts to highlight some of the more distinctive contributions. The total number of disciplines currently using thin sections on a regular basis include the following:

• Agriculture, Section 12.1

• Archeology, Section 12.2

• Engineering, Section 12.3

• Geomorphology, Section 12.4

• Paleoclimatology, Section 12.5

• Pedology and paleopedology, Section 12.6

• Soil microbiology, Section 12.7

• Soil zoology, Section 12.8