United States Department of Agriculture
Natural Resources Conservation Service
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Montana Digitizing Unit (DU) Forms

  • Please contact Richard.Robbins at 406-587-6720 for the following forms:
    • Published Soil Survey
    • Unpublished Soil Survey
    • Digitized Soil Survey for Quality Control Routines and Certification
    • Digitized Soil Survey for Certification Only
    • Electronic Map Compilation Soil Survey
    • Rearchive Request Form
    • Contract Digitizing/Certification Cost Estimate Request
  • Forms to Download

Published Soil Survey Query Form

Select this form if you are submitting a published soil survey for scanning, digitizing, and certification at the Montana DU.

Please submit the following materials when survey is ready to send to Montana:

  1. Publication manuscript.
  2. Stable-base soil overlays (please consider separate overlays depending on polygon count and size, map unit label strings [A18cBj] that cross soil lines, and the amount of special linear features).
  3. Ortho compilation film base.
  4. Map Compilation Certification letter (National Soil Survey Handbook Exhibit 647-3).
  5. Approved correlation map unit legend.
  6. Correlation document with amendments.
  7. Current Feature and Symbol Legend for Soil Survey, NRCS-SOI-37A; highlight special features in the survey area. Please document any special feature symbol changes.

NOTE: Surveys must have been funded under the Soil Survey Geographic Data (SSURGO) initiative.

Unpublished Soil Survey Query Form

Select this form if you are submitting an unpublished soil survey for scanning, digitizing, and certification at the Montana DU. This form could also be used for partially correlated (progressive) processing.

Please submit the following materials when survey is ready to send to Montana:

  1. Stable-base soil overlays.
  2. Correlation document with amendments.
    NOTE: Not necessary for partial/progressive data sets until survey has final correlation.
  3. Approved correlated map unit legend.
  4. Ortho compilation film base.
  5. Soil scientists' field maps.
  6. Map Compilation Certification letter (National Soil Survey Handbook Exhibit 647-3.)
  7. Current Feature and Symbol Legend for Soil Survey, NRCS-SOI-37A; highlight special features in the survey area and describe ad hocs. Please document any special feature symbol changes.

NOTE: Survey must have been funded under the SSURGO initiative.

Digitized Soil Survey Query Form for Quality Control Routines and Certification

Select this form if you are submitting digitized soils that need to have 100 percent of the survey processed through electronic and plot quality control routines and a Major Land Resource Area (MLRA) 10 percent digitizing review.

Please submit the following materials when survey is ready to send to Montana:

  1. Source used for raster scanning (scribe coats, recompiled overlays, publication positives).
  2. Raster scans (geo tiff, tiff, or rlc).
  3. Surveywide vectors with polygon labels (ARC/GIS, UTM Coordinate, NAD83 Interchange files [.e00]).
  4. Surveywide point and linear feature layers (ARC/GIS, UTM Coordinate, NAD83 Interchange files [.e00]).
  5. Correlation document with amendments.
  6. Approved, map unit legend.
  7. Map Compilation Certification letter (National Soil Survey Handbook Exhibit 647-3).
  8. Current Feature and Symbol Legend for Soil Survey, NRCS-SOI-37A; highlight special features in the survey area and describe ad hocs. Please document any special feature symbol changes.
  9. Metadata of process steps used to create the data in the state.

NOTE: Survey must have been funded under the SSURGO initiative.

Digitized Soil Survey Query Form for Certification Only

Select this form if you are submitting surveywide soil layers for certification for SSURGO.

Please submit the following materials when survey is ready to send to Montana:

  1. Surveywide area, point and linear features (ARC/GIS, UTM Coordinate, NAD83 Interchange files [.e00]).
  2. Map Compilation Certification letter (National Soil Survey Handbook Exhibit 647-3).
  3. Current Feature and Symbol Legend for Soil Survey, NRCS-SOI-37A; highlight special features in the survey area and describe ad hocs. Please document any special feature symbol changes.
  4. Interim Soil Survey Geographic Data Certification letter (National Soil Survey Handbook interim Exhibit 647-12).
  5. Correlation document with amendments.
  6. Metadata of process steps used to create the data in the state.

NOTE: Survey must have been funded under the SSURGO initiative.

Electronic Map Compilation Soil Survey Query Form

Select this form if published soil survey atlas sheets were scanned then rectified to digital orthophoto base.

Please submit the following materials for quality control processing and certification:

  1. Publication atlas sheets.
  2. Publication scanned images.
  3. Rectified image geo referenced TIFF files.
  4. Correlation document with amendments.

Also select this form if field sheets were used as the soil scientists' reference for onscreen compilation to digital orthophoto base.

Please submit the following materials for quality control processing and certification:

  1. Field sheets used as reference for onscreen compilation.
  2. Vectorized poly point and linear features.

NOTE: Survey must have been funded under the SSURGO initiative.

Rearchive Request Form

(Notification Query Form)
Select this form if the spatial data needs revised, edited, or corrected from its current online SSURGO publication at either NCGC in Ft. Worth, Texas, or from the Soil Data Mart at ITC in Ft. Collins, Colorado.

Please submit the following materials when survey(s) are ready to send to Montana.

  1. Adjacent certified survey(s) if survey boundary no longer joins within 4 meters.
  2. Surveywide UTM, NAD83 INTERCHANGE files (.e00) preferred but can come in as geographic projection.
Contract Digitizing/Certification Cost Estimate Request

Select this form if you have a survey for which you want the Montana DU to send you a cost estimate.

NOTE: Do not use this form if the survey is funded or will be funded under the SSURGO initiative.

Forms To Download

NCGC--Feature and Symbol Legend for Soil Survey, NRCS-SOI-37A
Symbol Definitions

Soil Data Warehouse Metadata Template

National Soil Survey Handbook Exhibits

Map Compilation Certification (Exhibit 647-3)
Interim Soil Survey Geographic Data Certification (Exhibit 647-12)

For help with any of the above forms, please contact Richard.Robbins at 406-587-6720.

Last Modified: 05/13/2008