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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 formation, also known as pedogenesis, is the process of soil genesis as regulated by the effects of place, environment, and history. Biogeochemical processes act to both create and destroy order ( anisotropy ) within 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]
Soil biology is the study of microbial and faunal activity and ecology in soil. Soil life , soil biota , soil fauna , or edaphon is a collective term that encompasses all organisms that spend a significant portion of their life cycle within a soil profile, or at the soil- litter interface.
The history of edaphology is not simple, as the two main alternative terms for soil science—pedology and edaphology—were initially poorly distinguished. [10] Friedrich Albert Fallou originally conceived pedology in the 19th century as a fundamental science separate from the applied science of agrology, [11] a predecessor term for edaphology, [12] a distinction retained in the current ...
Soil is made up of a multitude of physical, chemical, and biological entities, with many interactions occurring among them. It is a heterogenous mixture of minerals and organic matter with variations in moisture, temperature and nutrients.
Soil piping is a particular form of soil erosion that occurs below the soil surface. [237] It causes levee and dam failure, as well as sink hole formation. Turbulent flow removes soil starting at the mouth of the seep flow and the subsoil erosion advances up-gradient. [ 238 ]
Meanwhile, advances in soil chemistry, soil physics, soil mineralogy, and soil biology, as well as in the basic sciences that underlie them, have added new tools and new dimensions to the study of soil formation. As a consequence, the formation of soil has come to be treated as the aggregate of many interrelated physical, chemical, and ...