Soil layers

We are learning about what is under the ground this term.

We read a book called Sam and Dave Dig a Hole. 

We decided to dig a hole on Putikitiki to see what is under the grass we play on.

First Ms Jones dug a square with the spade and removed the top layer of grass.

We were surprised to find that not far beneath the surface there was fine white sand.
We wondered if the river had once flowed through Putikitiki gully and left river sand behind.

This photo shows the thin top layer of topsoil and the white sand underneath.

We dug  a bit deeper.

We laid the layers of soil and sand on a sheet of plastic.

The sand seemed to go on far down into the hole.

There were grass roots in the top layer. There were small worms amongst the roots.

We found a giant earthworm deep in the sand layer.

We looked through the soils and sand to see if there were any creatures or even treasure.

Here is the profile of the top layer. See the grass roots.

See the sand starting to show through the topsoil.

We couldn't really dig much deeper with our spade.
We would need to dig a much wider hole to go deeper.

Here is the fat earthworm that was deep in the sand.

We found a grassgrub beetle in the top layer.

We found an old rusty nail. It looked like a worm at first.

The sand was wonderfully smooth and easy to make into shapes.

Fially we put the layers of sand and earth back in the hole and compressed it with our feet.

There was a bit of sand and soil left over after we filled in the hole so we carried it over to a depression on another part of Putikitiki.

We dug a second hole on the other side of Putikitiki beside the big fallen log.
Interestingly, the topsoil went a lot deeper.

We found broken glass and stones in that hole.