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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.
All three processes promote soil parent material destratification, mixing, and often particle size sorting, leading with other processes to the formation of soil and its horizons. While the general term bioturbation refers mainly to these three mixing processes, unless otherwise specified it is commonly used as a synonym to faunalturbation ...
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 ]
The main processes of soil formation of oxisols are weathering, humification and pedoturbation due to animals. These processes produce the characteristic soil profile.They are defined as soils containing at all depths no more than ten percent weatherable minerals, and low cation exchange capacity.
Soil microbes decompose it through enzymatic biochemical processes, obtain the necessary energy from the same matter, and produce the mineral compounds that plant roots are apt to absorb. [12] The decomposition of organic compounds specifically into mineral, i. e., inorganic, compounds is denominated "mineralization".
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 ...
The process that converts soil organic matter into humus feeds the population of microorganisms and other creatures in the soil, and thus maintains high and healthy levels of soil life. [ 53 ] [ 54 ] The rate at which soil organic matter is converted into humus promotes (when fast, e.g. mull ) or limits (when slow, e.g. mor ) the coexistence of ...
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 ...