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A soil scientist examining horizons within a soil profile. Soil science is the study of soil as a natural resource on the surface of the Earth including soil formation, classification and mapping; physical, chemical, biological, and fertility properties of soils; and these properties in relation to the use and management of soils.
Soil Profile on Chalk at Seven Sisters Country Park, England. Pedology (from Greek: πέδον, pedon, "soil"; and λόγος, logos, "study") is a discipline within soil science which focuses on understanding and characterizing soil formation, evolution, and the theoretical frameworks for modeling soil bodies, often in the context of the natural environment. [1]
The study of land and its history in general is called geography. Mineralogy is the study of minerals, and petrology is the study of rocks. Soil science is the study of soils, encompassing the sub-disciplines of pedology, which focuses on soil formation, and edaphology, which focuses on the relationship between soil and life.
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support the life of plants and soil organisms. Some scientific definitions distinguish dirt from soil by restricting the former term specifically to displaced soil. Soil measuring and surveying device
[4] [5] [6] Edaphology includes the study of how soil influences humankind's use of land for plant growth [7] as well as people's overall use of the land. [8] General subfields within edaphology are agricultural soil science (known by the term agrology in some regions) and environmental soil science. [9]
Soils geomorphologists investigate soil profiles and chemistry to learn about the history of a particular landscape and understand how climate, biota, and rock interact. Other geomorphologists study how hillslopes form and change. Still others investigate the relationships between ecology and geomorphology. Because geomorphology is defined to ...
Environmental soil science addresses both the fundamental and applied aspects of the field including: buffers and surface water quality, vadose zone functions, septic drain field site assessment and function, land treatment of wastewater, stormwater, erosion control, soil contamination with metals and pesticides, remediation of contaminated ...
In his two books First Principles of Soil Science (1857, 2nd ed. 1865) and Pedology or General and Special Soil Science (1862) Friedrich Albert Fallou developed his collected field observations of soil into a systematic approach. He explained why soil formation was worthy of study and appealed for recognition of soil science as a discipline. In ...