Much of the Forest exhibits rolling terrain. Elevations range from 250 feet above sea level in the Haw River Division to 760 feet on Bald Mountain in the Blackwood Division.

The soils of the southern Piedmont are derived from diverse and ancient parent materials, including granite, granitic gneiss, metamorphic rock of the Carolina slate formation (from which Duke West Campus buildings are built), Triassic sedimentary rocks, and basic ignaceous intrusives, all of which are well represented on the Duke Forest.  Soils within the forest belong to some of the most common soil series within the Piedmont: Georgeville, Herndon, Tatum, Goldston, Whitestore, Creedmoor, Chewacla, Enon, Appling, and Cecil.  Most of these series have been substantially impacted by an agricultural past and are characterized by relatively coarse-textured surface soils (sandy loams to loams) and an underlying fine-textured clayey layers.  Many of the residual soils that are derived directly from underlying bedrock are many meters deep.  A Georgeville series soil on the Durham Division, intensively studied in the 1990s, was determined to be nearly 30 m in total depth over unweathered, solid bedrock.  Such deep soils result from extreme weathering conditions that have affected the southern Piedmont for 10s of millions of years.

Full soil profile
Pre-treatment soils