Deep Histosols which comprise about 20 percent of 

 the county's total land acreage. Large acreages 

 are being placed in cultivation, and peat mining 

 has been proposed within this group of soils. 



Natural areas identified: Alligator River; Roper 

 Island (in part) ; New Lake Fork Pocosin. 



f) Ponzer-Belhaven-Wasda Association - very poorly 

 drained soils with moderately thick to thin 

 organic surface layers and loamy subsurface 

 layers. 



Shallow Histosols (Wasda series soils are Histic 

 Humaquepts) which comprise about 30 percent of the 

 county's total land acreage. Extensively cleared 

 for agriculture mostly during the past 20 years. 



Natural areas identified: Alligator River (in part) ; 

 Roper Island (in part) ; Gull Rock Game Lands (in 

 part) . 



The entire area of mainland Hyde County is on the Pamlico 

 terrace or Pamlico surface. The Pamlico is the lowest and 

 youngest of the several generalized surfaces of the state's 

 Coastal Plain recognized as having been formed during periods 

 of higher sea level. The history of sea rise and fall is com- 

 plex. About 75,000 years BP (Daniel, 1981), during the Pamlico 

 transgression, the edge of the sea lay inland to a point now 

 marked by the sandy ridge of the Suffolk Scarp. The toe of 

 the scarp is now about 20 feet above modern sea level , and 

 15 miles west of the western boundary of Hyde County. During 

 the peak of the Wisconsin glaciation (15,000 yrs. BP) , sea 

 level stood as much as 400 feet below its modern level (Daniel, 

 1981). Since that period the sea has risen to its present level, 

 and continues to rise today. 



The complex cycle of marine transgressions and regressions 

 has produced differing effects upon the topography of the alter- 

 nately exposed and submerged surfaces. Rising seas slowed stream 

 erosion by raising stream base level , and planed off or obscured 

 with silts and muds the previous surface features. Falling sea 

 level in contrast exposed areas of the continental shelf and re- 

 juvenated streams, increasing downcutting and topographic relief. 



Concurrently with the recent period of rising sea levels, 

 conditions favorable to peat formation have prevailed in Hyde 

 County and throughout the North Carolina Coastal Plain, in a 

 variety of vegetational and topographic situations. During 



