Foothills Fescue Range Plant Community Guide - Sustainable ...

The Foothills Fescue Natural Subregion is dominated by Black Chernozemic soils (Table
3). Parent materials are dominantly glacial till, an unsorted mixture of sand, silt and clay
deposited directly from the ice. Glacio-lacustrine deposits are the next most common
where silt and clay have settled from suspension from ice-marginal glacial lakes. Glacial
fluvial (outwash) sediments occur in glacial meltwater channels, in middle and upper
terraces of major creeks and river valleys. These deposits are often composed of greater
than 20% gravel and cobbles, within a coarse matrix of loamy sand and sand, in lenses or
bands. Residual and fluvial-aeolian parent materials have a minor occurrence in the
subregion. Topography is dominantly undulating, but hummocky, inclined, level, rolling
and ridged areas also occur. Drainage is dominantly north to the South Saskatchewan
River drainage, but a drainage divide occurs on the north escarpment of the Milk River
Ridge, and the drainage to the south flows to the Missouri River system.
The level and undulating areas of the Foothills Fescue Natural Subregion are largely
devoted to crop agriculture. Upland areas, including the Willow Creek Upland and the
Del Bonita Plateau, are dominated by native vegetation and are used for livestock
grazing.
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