The Casa Grande is the official state

soil Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former te ...

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

Name and origin

The Casa Grande series was first identified in 1936. It is named after the city of

Casa Grande , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = Casa Grande-Casa Grande Union High School-1920-2.jpg , imagesize = 250px , image_caption = Historic Casa Grande Union High School which now serves as the ...

and the nearby

Casa Grande National Monument Casa Grande Ruins National Monument ( ood, Siwañ Waʼa Ki: or ''Sivan Vahki''), in Coolidge, Arizona, just north-east of the city of Casa Grande, Arizona, Casa Grande, preserves a group of Hohokam structures dating to the Classic Period (). H ...

, home of a large earthen building constructed by the

Hohokam Hohokam () was a culture in the North American Southwest in what is now part of Arizona, United States, and Sonora, Mexico. It existed between 300 and 1500 AD, with cultural precursors possibly as early as 300 BC. Archaeologists disagree about ...

nearly 1,000 years ago. The Spanish words “Casa Grande” mean “Big House.” The Native Americans used irrigation to remove excess salts from Casa Grande soils and raised cotton, grain, and vegetables on these productive soils, much as farmers do today.

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The Casa Grande series consists of very deep, well-drained, saline-sodic soils on fan terraces and relict basin floors. These soils formed in

alluvium Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluv ...

derived from

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

rhyolite Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral ...

andesite Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomi ...

quartzite Quartzite is a hard, non- foliated metamorphic rock which was originally pure quartz sandstone.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Edition, Stephen Marshak, p 182 Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tect ...

, and some

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

and

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

. Slopes generally are 0 to 5 percent. The climate is hot and arid.

External links

Casa Grande Soil
* tp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/NSSC/StateSoil_Profiles/az_soil.pdf Arizona state soil{dead link, date=July 2017 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes Pedology Soil in the United States Geology of Arizona Symbols of Arizona Types of soil

Name and origin

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See also

External links