burg, i think you actually need survival to do some damage. I was trying to lower my own soil spot down and with about 200 soils out, q dropped from q85-q83, so I barelly made any progress. Then again, it is still going down...
Its same with clay, if you dig with 1 survival alt, you can dig q30 node out with 5k clay, with 30+ survival out maybe 1k clay. (numbers are made out, but for sure you can dig more out with lowest survivalist)