STONINESS
Stoniness Class

Occurrence of stones at the surface of the soil.

Description

Rock fragments on the surface of a soil or those protruding above ground have important effects on soil use and management. The limitations they impose are related to their number, size, and spacing at the surface.

The class limits that follow are defined in terms of the approximate amount of stones (25 to 60 cm in diameter or if flat 38 to 60 cm long) and of boulders (more than 60 cm in diameter or if flat more than 60 cm long); and of their spacing.

Classes

Code	Meaning	Percentage of surface covered	distance (meters) between stones or boulders if their diameter is ...
			25 cm	60 cm	120 cm
-	Not Applicable
0	Nonstony	< 0.01	> 25	> 60	> 120
1	Slightly stony	0.01 - 0.1	8 - 25	20 - 60	37 - 120
2	Moderately stony	0.1 - 3	1 - 8	3 - 20	6 - 37
3	Very stony	3 - 15	0.5 - 1	1 - 3	2 - 6
4	Exceedingly stony	15 - 50	0.1 - 0.5	0.2 - 1	0.5 - 2
5	Excessively stony	> 50	< 0.1	< 0.2	< 0.5

Validation

1. STONINESS for COMPONENT 1 must have one of the following values:
   • - if SOIL_CODE is a nonsoil or unclassified or if missing for the entire map
   • 0 to 5 if SOIL_CODE is a soil
2. STONINESS for other COMPONENTs must be - or 0 to 5.
3. Organic soils have Stoniness 0 except in NF and NB where the values are the same as for mineral soils.

Source: Wally Fraser and Gary Patterson and Peter Schut
Contact: Head, CanSIS