# Need some help interpreting mason jar test



## TeeGee2020 (Oct 7, 2020)

A portion of my back lawn has soil that seems much different than the rest. Even if it hasn't rained for a few days, the soil is still sort of squishy to walk on and the grass is very thin. There is also what appears to be little gold specks throughout the soil, almost glittery. I think the previous homeowner installed a new drain line in this area, which would be a reason why the soil is different. Anyway, I had read about the mason jar test on here and was curious to give it a try to see if it could shed some light on this area of soil.


The above image is taken 2 minutes into the test. I marked the top of each layer with a sharpie.


This second image is taken 2 hours into the test. I added two additional marks for the new layer locations.


This third image is almost three days into the test. You can see the marks from the 2 minute and 2 hour interval.

I think it is pretty obvious that there is a decent amount of clay, which I assume is the top layer which is still growing. And the fact that the water is still slowly clearing up is another indication that the clay is still dropping out. But what about the bottom layer. Is that silt or sand? Every example I see online has a distinct line between silt and sand, with three total layers (sand, silt and clay). But I only have one thick layer at the bottom. Any ideas on what I am looking at, as far as sand/silt/clay layers go? Is that a bunch of silt at the bottom?

FYI - the foamy layer at the very top of the jar is just a thin coating on the inside of the jar. The water level is at the bottom of this, which you can see is starting to clear up after almost three days.

Also, I used some of the soil to create a sample to send in to a testing lab (first time doing this as well). The image below is the soil. You can kind of see the gold flecks that I am talking about. Any idea what those flecks could be?


----------



## Lawn Whisperer (Feb 15, 2021)

I had my soil texture tested at a lab. I thought my soil was clay but the lab results came back as loam.

The bottom should be sand. You should pan it for gold. 

https://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/soil-texture-analysis-the-jar-test/


----------



## TeeGee2020 (Oct 7, 2020)

Lol. Yeah I am thinking that the bottom layer is sand as well. After 3 days, I re-mixed the soil/water mixture and that deep bottom layer forms almost instantly. My understanding is that sand drops within the first minute or two. It just threw me off...with that much "sand", I would expect that portion of my lawn to resemble a sand box. It ended up being 88/12 sand-clay ratio, which puts me in the "loamy sand" category.


----------

