Quaternary geologic map of the White Lake 4° x 6° quadrangle, United States

NOTE: This map is the product of collaboration of State geological surveys, universities, and the U.S . Geological Survey, and is designed for both scientific and practical purposes. It was prepared in two stages. First, separate maps and map explanations of the parts of States included in the quadrangle were prepared by the State compilers indicated on the inset diagram, Areas of Responsibility. Second, these maps were combined, integrated, locally supplemented, and related to a uniform map symbol classification. The map unit descriptions also were combined, supplemented, and coordinated with those of other maps of this series so that individual unit descriptions are applicable throughout both this map and all other maps of the series. Diagrams accompanying the map were prepared by the editors. Differences in mapping or interpretation in different areas were resolved by correspondence to the extent possible. Most simply reflect differences in available information or differences in philosophies of mapping. Such differences serve to encourage further investigation. Less than forty percent of the surficial deposits of the United States have been mapped and described . Traditionally, mapping of surficial deposits has been focused on glacial, alluvial, eolian, lacustrine, and marine deposits. Slope and upland deposits have been mapped in detail only in restricted areas. However, an enormous amount of engineering construction and many important problems of land use and land management are associated with regions that have extensive slope and upland deposits (colluvium, and residuum for example). These materials have many different physical characteristics. Therefore, an effort has been made to classify, map, and describe there deposits, based in large part on unpublished interpretations of individuals, published and unpublished subsoil data, and the distribution of bedrock parent materials. The classification is crude, but represents a first step toward a more refined and useful product. For scientific purposes, the map differentiates Quaternary surficial deposits on the basis of a combination of criteria, such as lithology, texture, genesis, stratigraphic relationships, and age, as shown on the correla tion diagram and indicated in the map unit descriptions. Some geomorphic features, such as dune ridge, are distinguished as map units. Erosional features, such as stream terraces, are not distinguished, and differentiation of sequences of alluvial deposits of different ages is rarely possible at a scale of 1:1,000,000. For practical purposes, the map is a surficial materials map, on which materials are distinguished on the basis of texture, composition, and local specific characteristics such as swelling clay. It is not a map of soils as soils are recognized and classified in pedology or agronomy. Rather it is a generalized map of soils as recognized in engineering geology, or of subsoils or parent materials from which pedologic and agronomic soils are formed. As a materials map it serves as a base from which a wide variety of derivative maps for use in planning engineering, land use, or land management projects can be compiled.