gleying
/ɡlaɪɪŋ/
noun
- A soil layer that is sticky, bluish-gray, and formed under wet conditions with little oxygen.
- Geologists studied the gleying to understand how the ancient wetland had formed.
- When digging the pond, we hit a layer of gleying that was almost like clay.
- The farmer noticed a thick gleying beneath the topsoil after the heavy rains.
verb
- To form or become a sticky, bluish-gray soil layer due to waterlogging and lack of oxygen.
- The land started to gley when the drainage system failed.
- If you overwater the garden, the clay may gley and become hard to dig.
- The soil began to gley after the field was flooded for several weeks.