In soils with very high 2:1 clay contents, the soils expand and contract as they are wetted and dried. This creates shear faces called slickenslides, like the one shown above. Essentially they clay expands so much it’s forced to shear somehow, and this is the resulting shear plane.

associated soil pit

  • @moistclump
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    410 months ago

    I’d originally read it as chickenslides. Wondered if it was a new chicken strips.