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Understanding Soil Formation: The Four Key Processes

Soil formation is a dynamic process involving four essential mechanisms: additions, losses, translocations, and transformations. Additions occur through rain, dust, animal waste, and fertilizers that enrich the soil with water, minerals, organic matter, and nutrients. Losses entail evaporation, erosion, and leaching, which deplete soil components. Translocations involve the movement of materials within the soil driven by gravity and evaporation. Transformations see components like dead leaves decomposing into humus and hard rock weathering into clay. Over time, soil continuously evolves, reflecting its age and changing environmental conditions.

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Understanding Soil Formation: The Four Key Processes

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Presentation Transcript

  1. How do soils form? Processes

  2. 4 basic processes in the soil ADDITIONS LOSSES TRANSLOCATIONS (MOVEMENT WITHIN THE SOIL) TRANSFORMATIONS (ONE COMPONENT CHANGES TO ANOTHER)

  3. ADDITIONS Rain adds WATER. Dust adds MINERALS. Animal waste add ORGANIC MATTER and NUTRIENTS. Humans add FERTILIZER.

  4. LOSSES WATER evaporates into the air. Soil particles WASH AWAY in storms. ORGANIC MATTER may compose into carbon dioxide. NUTRIENTS and MINERALS leach into groundwater or are taken up by plants.

  5. TRANSLOCATIONS MOVEMENT WITHIN THE SOIL GRAVITY pull WATER down from top to bottom. EVAPORATINGWATER draws minerals up from bottom to top ORGANISMS carry materials every direction.

  6. TRANSFORMATIONS (ONE COMPONENT CHANGES TO ANOTHER) Dead leaves decompose into HUMUS. Hard rock WEATHERS into soft clay Oxygen REACTS with iron, “rusting” the soil into a reddish color.

  7. Looks Change With Age The older a soil gets, the more different it looks from its parent material. Soil is always changing – minerals, water, air, organic matter and organisms – always change.

  8. AGE IN YEARS 0 10 100 1,000 10,000 100,000 A - topsoil E-Eluviated B- Subsoil C-Parent Material R- Bedrock A soil profile is like a snap-shot, capturing what the soil looks like NOW. In the PAST, soil looked different, and in the FUTURE, it will look different then it does now.

  9. Vocabulary • Transform • Weathering • Decompose • Leaching • Minerals • Organic Matter • Organisms • Developed Soil • Humus • Bedrock

  10. Vocabulary • Additions • Losses • Translocation

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