How To Use This Website

This site contains a wealth of information on the soils of Santa Cruz County, California. Browsing through the menus, you will find a variety of maps, written descriptions, and interpretive tables with detailed information on the 84 soil mapping units. Further helpful information on natural resources topics can be accessed as well.

The site has the same structure as the printed soil survey report with sections and subsections, in the form of a dynamic menu or table of contents.  To expand the main section menus, click the 's.  The subsections will become visible.  To close or collapse the section menus, click the 's.  

The typical soil survey user may simply want to locate their site on a soils map and go directly to the mapping unit description for that soil. To do this, click on "Detailed Soil Maps Index" on the menu to the left. This will take you to a gridded base map of Santa Cruz County. Find your general location, and click on the appropriate quad map sheet. Once the map has fully loaded on the page, use the scroll bars to move to your location. Zoom in to using the button on the left corner of the map.  When you find your site, simply place cursor on the 3-digit soil map unit number and click. This will display a description of the mapping unit on the right side of the map. 

If you’re only interested in a soils description, skip the map steps and click on the next to "Detailed Soil Map Units" from the menu on the left, then click on the desired soil map unit appearing on the menu that opens.  A description of the mapping unit is displayed.

Specific topics listed below can be found by clicking on the following menu items: