SOIL RESOURCES

Soil
• An essential component of Earth that enables life to
exist on the planet and support it
• Soils are the stomach of the earth, consuming,
digesting, and cycling nutrients and organisms.
• Soil may appear as a rather inert material on which
we walk, build roads, construct buildings, and grow
plants.
• On closer observation, soil is teeming with living
organisms.
• including archaea, bacteria, fungi, algae, protozoa, and a
wide variety of larger soil fauna (such as mites,
nematodes, earthworms, ants, insects that spend all or
part of their life underground), and larger organisms
(such as burrowing rodents).
Dirt
• Dirt is what gets on our clothes or under our fingernails.
• It is soil that is out of place in our world– whether tracked inside by
shoes or on our clothes.
• Dirt is also soil that has lost the characteristics that give it the ability
to support life – it is dead.
Describing a Soil
Pedosphere
• Formed by soil
• The foundation of
terrestrial life
• The living skin of Earth
that results from the
dynamic interaction
among the atmosphere,
biosphere, geosphere,
and hydrosphere.
Soil Components
• 45% mineral (gravel, sand, silt,
clay)
• 25% air
• 25% water
• 5% organic matter (humus, roots,
and dead and decaying
organisms)
Soil Formation
• Soil forms when rock weathers
• Weathering (breakdown of rocks) may result from physical and
chemical changes
• Soil formation may be slow or rapid depending on the factors at play
• Soils differ from one part of the world to another, because of where
and how they formed.
Soil Formation
 Factors that Affect Soil Formation
Climate
• Climate, temperature, and moisture influence the
speed of chemical reactions, which help control how
Organisms fast rocks weather and dead organisms decompose.
• Soils develop faster in warm, moist climates and
slowest in cold or arid ones.
Relief

Parental
Material

Time
 Factors that Affect Soil Formation
Climate
• Plants root, animals burrow, and bacteria eat
• These and other organisms speed up the breakdown of
Organisms large soil particles into smaller ones.
• For instance, roots produce carbon dioxide that mixes
with water and forms an acid that wears away rock.
Relief

Parental
Material

Time
 Factors that Affect Soil Formation
Climate
• Relief (landscape)—The shape of the land and the
direction it faces make a difference in how much
Organisms sunlight the soils gets and how much water it keeps.
• Deeper soils form at the bottom of a hill because
gravity and water move soil particles down the slope.
Relief

Parental
Material

Time
 Factors that Affect Soil Formation
Climate
• Every soil “inherits” traits from the parent material from
which it formed.
Organisms • For example, soils that form from limestone are rich in
calcium, and soils that form from materials at the bottom of
lakes are high in clay
Relief • Every soil formed from parent material are deposited at the
Earth's surface. The material could have been bedrock that
weathered in place or smaller materials carried by flooding
Parent rivers, moving glaciers, or blowing winds.
Material
• Parent material is changed through biological, chemical, and
environmental processes, such as weathering and erosion.
Time
 Factors that Affect Soil Formation
Climate
• Time—All of these factors work together over time.
• Older soils differ from younger soils because they have had
Organisms longer to develop.
• As soil ages, it starts to look different from its parent material,
because soil is dynamic.
Relief • Its components—minerals, water, air, organic matter, and
organisms—constantly change.
Parental • Components are added and lost; some move from place to
Material place within the soil, and some components are totally
changed, or transformed.
Time
Soil Properties
• Soil Texture
• Relative proportion of sand, silt, and clay
• Sand: 2–0.05 mm
• Silt: 0.05–0.002 mm
• Clay: >0.002 mm
Soil Classification (Soil Textural
Triangle)
Soil Profile
• There are different types of soil, each with its own set of
characteristics.
• Dig down deep into any soil, and you’ll see that it is made of layers, or
horizons (O, A, E, B, C, R).
• Place the horizons together, and they form a soil profile.
• Each profile tells a story about the life of a soil. Most soils have three
major horizons (A, B, C), and some have an organic horizon (O). The
horizons are
Soil Horizons

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Soil Profile
• O Horizon – (humus or organic) Mostly organic matter such as
decomposing leaves. The O horizon is thin in some soils, thick in
others, and not present at all in others.
• A Horizon - (topsoil) Mostly minerals from parent material with
organic matter incorporated. A good material for plants and other
organisms to live.
• E Horizon – (eluviated) Leached of clay, minerals, and organic matter,
leaving a concentration of sand and silt particles of quartz or other
resistant materials – missing in some soils but often found in older
soils and forest soils.
Soil Profile
• B Horizon – (subsoil) Rich in minerals that leached (moved down)
from the A or E horizons and accumulated here.
• C Horizon – (parent material) The deposit at Earth’s surface from
which the soil developed.
• R Horizon – (bedrock/regolith) A mass of rock such as granite, basalt,
quartzite, limestone or sandstone that forms the parent material for
some soils – if the bedrock is close enough to the surface to weather.
This is not soil and is located under the C horizon.
Soil Orders
Soil Orders
Alfisols
• Found in semiarid to moist areas.
• Formed under forest or mixed vegetative cover and are productive for most crops

Andisols
• tend to be highly productive soils.
• They are common in cool areas with moderate to high precipitation, especially those areas
associated with volcanic material

Ardisols
• Soils that are too dry for the growth of mesophytic plants.
• They often accumulate gypsum, salt, calcium carbonate, and other materials that are easily
leached from soil in more humid environments. Aridisols are common in the world’s deserts
Soil Orders
Entisols occur in areas of recently deposited parent materials or in
areas where erosion or deposition rates are faster than the rate of
soil development; such as dunes, steep slopes and flood plains.

Gelisols are soils that have permafrost near the soil surface, have
evidence of frost churning, or ice segregation. These are common
in the higher latitudes or high elevations.

Histosols have a high content of organic matter and no permafrost.

Most are saturated year round, but a few are freely drained. They
are commonly called bogs, moors, pears or mucks.
Soil Orders
Inceptisols are soils of semiarid to humid environments that generally
exhibit only moderate degrees of soil weathering and development.
These occur in a wide variety of climates.

Mollisols are soils that have a dark colored surface horizon relatively
high in content of organic matter. The soils are base rich throughout and
therefore are quite fertile.

Oxisols are highly weathered soils of tropical and subtropical regions.

They characteristically occur on land surfaces that have been stable for a
long time. They have low natural fertility as well as a low capacity to
retain additions of lime and fertilizer.
Soil Orders
Spodosols formed from weathering processes that strip organic matter combined with
aluminum from the surface layer and deposit them in the subsoil. These tend to be acid and
infertile.

Ultisols are soils in humid areas. They are typically acid soils in which most nutrients are
concentrated in the upper few inches. They have a moderately low capacity to retain additions
of lime and fertilizer.

Vertisols have a high content of expanding clay minerals. They undergo pronounced changes
in volume with changes in moisture. Because they swell when wet, vertisols transmit water
very slowly and have undergone little leeching. They tend to be fairly high in natural fertility.