How To Use This Website

This site contains a wealth of information on the soils of Western Mendocino County. Browsing through the menus, you will find a variety of maps, written descriptions, and interpretive tables with detailed information on the 145 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". At the following page, click on "Index to Maps (View)". This will take you to a gridded base map of Western Stanislaus County, comprised of 20 quadrangle maps. 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. When you find your site, simply click on the MUID's pull down menu, then place cursor on the 3-digit soil map unit number and click. This will take you to the description page. Scroll up or down on that page for a description of the representative soil profile for that soil series. 

If you are interested in printing maps, click "Detailed Soil Maps", then "Downloading Maps" from the menu on the left.  This will take you to a gridded base map of Western Mendocino County, comprised of 40 quadrangle maps. That page includes instructions to download a map. The .tif files can be loaded into most PC applications from which you can print graphics.

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: