TRANSCRIPT:
Hello this is Dr. Tom Mullikin with SCDNR for Into the Wild.
Drive through the center of South Carolina and the soil can change almost without warning. Red clay gives way to pale, loose sand, and the landscape begins to feel more like the coast even though the ocean is far away.
The Sandhills are part of an old Coastal Plain landscape shaped over long periods by changing shorelines, rivers, wind, and moving sediment. Water drains quickly through these deep sands, creating dry conditions that favor longleaf pine, scrubby oaks, and plants adapted to heat and fire.
That sandy ground also stores a record of where water and land once met. The next time your tires cross from clay onto sand, notice the change. South Carolina's geologic history is not locked in a museum. Much of it is still lying directly beneath the road.