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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
Parent material is the underlying geological material (generally bedrock or a superficial or drift deposit) in which soil horizons form. Soils typically inherit a great deal of structure and minerals from their parent material, and, as such, are often classified based upon their contents of consolidated or unconsolidated mineral material that has undergone some degree of physical or chemical ...
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals [1] (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, Al 2 Si 2 O 5 4). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impurities, such as a reddish or brownish colour from small amounts of iron oxide. [2] [3]
A third definition is that silt is fine-grained detrital material composed of quartz rather than clay minerals. [6] Since most clay mineral particles are smaller than 2 microns, [7] while most detrital particles between 2 and 63 microns in size are composed of broken quartz grains, there is good agreement between these definitions in practice. [5]
The first known use of the word "mineral" in the English language (Middle English) was the 15th century. The word came from Medieval Latin: minerale, from minera, mine, ore. [44] The word "species" comes from the Latin species, "a particular sort, kind, or type with distinct look, or appearance". [45]
A fen is located on a slope, flat, or in a depression and gets most of its water from the surrounding mineral soil or from groundwater (minerotrophic). Thus, while a bog is always acidic and nutrient-poor, a fen may be slightly acidic, neutral, or alkaline, and either nutrient-poor or nutrient-rich. [ 8 ]
Kankar or (kunkur) is a sedimentological term derived from Hindi (and ultimately Sanskrit) which is occasionally applied in both India [1] and the United States to detrital or residual rolled, often nodular calcium carbonate formed in soils of semi-arid regions. [2] It is used in the making of lime and of roads. [3]
Soil texture is determined by the relative proportion of the three kinds of soil mineral particles, called soil separates: sand, silt, and clay. At the next larger scale, soil structures called peds or more commonly soil aggregates are created from the soil separates when iron oxides , carbonates , clay, silica and humus , coat particles and ...