The influence of clay mineralogy and diagenesis of Upper Carboniferous shales on soil formation in parts of Devon

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Abstract
SUMMARY: There is a correlation between variations in the clay mineral assemblages of the Crackington Formation (Upper Carboniferous) shales in parts of Devon, and the soil series mapped in the same areas. The differences in soil‐forming characteristics of the shales are not due to mineralogy alone, but to various states of diagenetic induration which they have achieved. Brown earths (Dunsford series) are formed on steeper slopes of more durable, illite‐chlorite dominated shales, whereas clayey soils (Tedburn and Halstow series) are typical of flatter, more poorly drained slopes of weaker illite and illite‐kaolinite clay mineral assemblages. This result adds the geological component to earlier views that the different soil series are simply a consequence of physiographic and hydrologic position.

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