For Kids · The land and the sky · The ground under you
Abidjan · West African Coast & Guinean Forest
Try it
Drag the spade down, or tap Dig deeper, through the leaves, the living topsoil and the subsoil, all the way to the bedrock that is really down there.
About 0 cm down
The grass
the top of the ground
Under the grass is a whole hidden world. Drag the spade down — or press Dig deeper — to find out what is down there.
Layer 0 of 5
It takes hundreds of years to make one centimetre of topsoil. The depths are typical — every place is different — and the ruler is squashed at the bottom so the rock fits on the screen.
Say it like this
Go outside: Dig a small hole in the garden and count how many worms live in one shovelful — then put them all back and fill it in.
The river right now
30%
of the ten-year median for this date · 18.7 m³/s against 62.7 normally
very lowWell below normal for the date. Fish crowd into whatever deep, cool water is left, which makes them findable and also makes them fragile — a fish played hard in warm shallow water often does not recover. It is rising — about 28% more water by the end of the week.
Under your feet
About 3 million years old — from the ice ages and since — the most recent chapter.
All the kinds of rock, and how each one forms →
sedimentary · Quaternary
Cenozoic sedimentary rocks · Neogene
Bedrock and soil figures are modelled from national geological surveys and global soil mapping, at a resolution of a few hundred metres — right for the shape of a district, not for a particular garden. River discharge is modelled, not gauged. For anything that matters, dig a hole and look.
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Try it
Drag the spade down, or tap Dig deeper, through the leaves, the living topsoil and the subsoil, all the way to the bedrock that is really down there.
About 0 cm down
The grass
the top of the ground
Under the grass is a whole hidden world. Drag the spade down — or press Dig deeper — to find out what is down there.
Layer 0 of 5
It takes hundreds of years to make one centimetre of topsoil. The depths are typical — every place is different — and the ruler is squashed at the bottom so the rock fits on the screen.
Say it like this
Go outside: Dig a small hole in the garden and count how many worms live in one shovelful — then put them all back and fill it in.
The soil it made
What that means
Comfortable for woodland plants and a little tight for the vegetable garden. Brassicas sulk, and clubroot is worse at this end of the scale.
Happy here without a fight
Blueberries, raspberries, potatoes, rhubarb, carrots, most conifers, azaleas and hydrangeas — which come out blue here.
If you want the rest
A dressing of lime in autumn brings the vegetable beds up without touching the fruit. Leave the blueberries well alone.
Working it
Water runs straight through, so it dries fast and warms early — you can work it days after rain and sow ahead of heavier ground, but it needs watering and feeding more often because both wash out.