MapCoast

Commonly used Abbreviations and size definitions

A variety of systems are used to define the size ranges of particles, where the ranges of sand, silt, and clay that define a particle class differs among countries. In the U.S. the soil texture is classified based on the U.S.D.A. system. The classification of particle sizes are the following (units: mm):

clay: < 0.002
silt: 0.002 - 0.05
fine sand: 0.05 - 0.1
medium sand: 0.1 - 0.5
coarse sand: 0.5 - 1.0
very coarse sand: 1.0 - 2.0
gravel: 2.0 - 762.0
cobbles: > 762.0

Particles greater than 2 mm are removed from a textural soil classification. The presence of larger particles is recognized by the use of modifiers added to the textural class (e.g. gravelly, cobbly, stony)

Soil texture	Abbreviation
Gravel	g
Very coarse sand	vcos
Coarse sand	cos
Sand	s
Fine sand	fs
Very fine sand	vfs
Loamy coarse sand	lcos
Loamy sand	ls
Loamy fine sand	lfs
Sandy loam	sl
Fine sandy loam	fsl
Very fine sandy loam	vfsl
Gravelly sandy loam	gsl
Loam	l
Gravelly loam	gl
Stony loam	stl
Silt	si
Silt loam	sil
Clay loam	cl
Silty clay loam	sicl
Sandy clay loam	scl
Stony clay loam	stcl
Silty clay	sic
Clay	c

Shape and size [mm]	Adjective
Spherical and cubelike:
2 - 75	gravelly
2 - 5	fine gravelly
5 - 20	medium gravelly
20 - 75	coarse gravelly
75 - 250	cobbly
250 - 600	stony
> 600	bouldery