Talk:Soil/Archive 1

Remove quotations section
Shouldn't the quotations section be removed? r3m0t 16:18, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Good call, makes sense. But to where? I am looking at wikiquote.org, I should probably create a theme page for soil quotes (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Themes). Not clear to me how to do this, so I will dig deeper. Paleorthid 16:45, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Soil ................OR >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Paleorthid 23:02, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Clean-up notes: April 2005
As a first-pass clean-up edit, I added a little bit of basic stuff, moved a whole chunk (copied directly below) and consolidated the two "See also" and "Reference" sections. Maybe some of the removed material can make it back:

Suggested addition from Household Cyclopedia of 1881
The following text is taken from the Household Cyclopedia of 1881, and should be updated and integrated with the above article:

Soils consist mostly of sand, lime, and clay, with certain saline and organic substances in smaller and varying proportions; but the examination of the ashes of plants shows that a fertile soil must of necessity contain an appreciable quantity of at least eleven different substances, which in most cases exist in greater or less relative abundance in the ash of cultivated plants; and of these the proportions are not by any means immaterial. In general, the soils which are made up of the most various materials are called alluvial; having been formed from the depositions of floods and rivers. Many of them are extremely fertile. Soils consist of two parts; of an organic part, which can readily be burned away when the surface-soil is heated to redness; and of an inorganic part, which remains fixed in the fire, consisting of earthy and saline substances from which, if carbonic acid or any elastic gas be present, it may, however, be driven by the heat. The organic part of soils is derived chiefly from the remains of vegetables and animals which have lived and died in and upon the soil, which have been spread over it by rivers and rains, or which have been added by the industry of man for the purposes of increased fertility.

This organic part varies much in quantity, as well as quality, in different soils. In peaty soils it is very abundant, as well as in some rich, long cultivated lands. In general, it rarely amounts to one-fourth, or 25 per cent. even in our best arable lands. Good wheat soils contain often as little as eight parts in the hundred of organic animal or vegetable matter; oats and rye will grow in a soil containing only 1 1/2 per cent.; and barley when only two or three parts per cent. are present.

The inorganic portion of any given soil, again, is divisible into two portions; that part which is soluble in water, and thus easily taken up by plants, and a much more bulky portion which is insoluble.

Sir Humphry Davy found the following to be the composition of a good productive soil.


 * In every 9 parts, 8 consisted of siliceous sand;
 * the remaining (one-ninth) part was composed, in 100 parts, as follows:
 * Carbonate of lime (Chalk) 63 grains.
 * Pure silex 15 grains.
 * Pure alumina, or the earth of clay 11 grains.
 * Iron oxide (rust) of iron 3 grains.
 * Vegetable and other saline matter 5 grains.
 * Moisture and loss 3 grains.

Thus the whole amount of organic matter in this instance is only 1 part in 200, or one-half of one per cent.; a fact which, in itself, would demonstrate the fallacy of supposing that decomposed animal and vegetable matter in the soil form the exclusive supply to growing plants.

Clayey soil
A clayey soil, though distinguished by the color which it bears, namely black, white, yellow and red, differs from all other soils, being tough, wet, and cold, and consequently requiring a good deal of labor from the husbandman before it can be sufficiently pulverized, or placed in a state for bearing artificial crops of corn or grass. Clay land is known by the following qualities, or properties.

It holds water like a cup, and once wetted does not soon dry. In like manner, when thoroughly dry, it is not soon wetted; if we except the varieties which have a thin surface, and are the worst of all to manage. In a dry summer, clay cracks and shows a surface full of small chinks, or openings. If ploughed in a wet state, it sticks to the plough like mortar, and in a dry summer, the plough turns it up in great clods, scarcely to be broken or separated by the heaviest roller.

Clayey soils, when sufficiently enriched with manures, are naturally well qualified for carrying crops of wheat, oats, beans, and clover; but are not fitted for barley, turnips, potatoes, etc., or even for being kept under for grass longer than one year. Such soils ought to be regularly summer-fallowed once in six, or at least once in eight years, even when they are comparatively in a clean state, as they contract a sourness and adhesion from wet ploughing, only to be removed by exposure to the sun and wind during the dry months of summer. Soils of this kind receive little benefit from winter ploughing, unless so far as their surface is thereby presented to the frost, which mellows and reduces them in a manner infinitely superior to what could be accomplished by all the operations of man. Still they are not cleaned or made free of weeds by winter ploughing; and therefore this operation can only be considered as a good means for producing a seed-bed, in which the seeds of the future crop may be safely deposited. Hence the necessity of cleansing clay soils during the summer months, and of having always a large part of every clay farm under summer fallow. All clayey soils require great industry and care, as well as a considerable portion of knowledge in dressing or management to keep them in good condition; yet when their natural toughness is got the better of, they always yield the heaviest and most abundant crops. One thing requisite for a clayey soil, is to keep it rich and full of manure; a poor clay being the most ungrateful of all soils, and hardly capable of repaying the expense of labor, after being worn out and exhausted. A clayey soil also receives, comparatively, smell benefit from grass; and when once allowed to get into a sterile condition, the most active endeavors will with difficulty restore fertility to it after the lapse of many years.

Upon light soils the case is very different. These flourish under the grass husbandry; and bare summer fallow is rarely required, because they may be cleaned and cropped in the same year with that valuable esculent, turnip. Upon light soils, however, wheat can seldom be extensively cultivated; nor can a crop be obtained of equal value, either in respect to quantity or quality, as on clay sand loams. The best method of procuring wheat on light lands, is to sow upon a clover stubble, when the soil has got an artificial solidity of body and is thereby rendered capable of sustaining the grain till it arrives at maturity. The same observation applies to soils of a gravelly nature; and upon both barley is generally found of as great benefit as wheat.

Thin clays and peat earths are more friendly to the growth of oats than of other grains, though in favorable seasons a heavy crop of wheat may be obtained from a thin clayey soil, when it has been completely summer-fallowed and enriched with dung. A first application of calcareous manure is generally accompanied with great advantage upon these soils; but when once the effect of this application is over, it can hardly be repeated a second time, unless the land has been very cautiously managed after the first dressing. Neither of these soils is friendly to grass, yet there is a necessity of exercising this husbandry with them, because they are incapable of standing the plough more than a year or two in the course of a rotation.

Wheat ought to be the predominant crop upon all the rich clays and strong loams, and light soils of every kind are well qualified for turnips, barley, etc. Upon the thin and moorish soils, oats must necessarily preserve a prominent rank, and grass seeds may be cultivated upon every one of them, though with different degrees of advantage, according to the natural and artificial richness of each soil, or to the qualities which it possesses for encouraging the growth of clover, in the first instance, and preserving the roots of the plant afterwards.

END OF QUOTED CHUNK

Edaphic
I have just changed the dictdef edaphic to redirect to this article. If anyone has the time, mentioning this word might be worthwhile, but I'm too clueless and lazy to know where to put it. &rarr;I&ntilde;g&#333;lemo&larr;  talk 23:49, 2005 May 16 (UTC)

Pointing something out
This is rather off topic, but I thought I'd point out the (apparently unnoticed) humor arising from the fact that there's a tag about how the article needs to be cleaned up, and the article is about dirt.

Wouldn't cleaning up this article kind of involve the end result of no article being there?

--JD 01:41, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

weathering
I am working on the following:

Mineral grains in rock parent material is broken down by physical weathering, producing silt and sand size particles. Mineral grains are subjected to the forces of chemical weathering in the soil solution, being converting to more stable secondary soil minerals and solutes. Clay minerals are the most abundant secondary soil mineral. Soil solutes can be leached out. Solutes accumulate in a different part of the soil profile than where they originated, producing the genetic characteristics that soil scientists use to classify soil. Paleorthid 13:52, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Kudos to DavidH!!!
Kudos to DavidH for cleaning up the article! A massive task that landed on its feet! Paleorthid 7 July 2005 16:57 (UTC)

agronomy
Problem statement: "The science of soil in relation to agriculture and plant science is known as Agronomy." --This is incorrect from the pespective of how scientific disciplines are ordered. In my opinion, it is also at odds with common usage: Would one similarly say "the science of water/air/climate/physics/chemistry/ as it relates to agriculture is known as agronomy"? No!

From agrology article: "Edaphology or crop edaphology in combination with soil management would be the preferred approach used by soil scientists to concisely describe soil science as it applies to crop production."

Therefore, the statement could be corrected to say "...is known as edaphology". However, correcting the statement makes the article unecessarily obscure and wordy therefore it is best to simply remove the incorrect statement. Paleorthid 7 July 2005 16:57 (UTC)

volume
Due to compaction by gravity, soil pore volume decreases with depth from the surface, commonly to about 25%. Incidently 25% is considered a typical cross sectional "void" volume by geohydrologists working with water transmissivity in water bearing strata. mineral soil pore volume in topsoil is lowest in sand (40%) and highest in clay (60%). Most mineral soil is about 50% pore volume in the topsoil portion. Pore volume in organic surface soil material (peat, for instance) would be higher than 60%.

Compaction is a reduction in pore volume. Sandy soils are more prone to compaction due to less surface area to offer structural/friction-based resistance to compacting forces, therefore it is normal for sandy soil material to have less pore volume than silt or clay. This means, when dry, sand weighs more per cubic foot than medium and fine textured soil. When one refers to a clay soil as a heavy soil, it is in recognition of its higher water holding capacity due to greater particle surface area.

Paleorthid 7 July 2005 17:20 (UTC)

Cleanup done?
Uh, this was assigned to me. Frankly, it doesn't need cleaned up anymore... all I could really do was comma grammar and linking... so I'm removing it from cleanup and my desk. DoomBringer 04:28, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Soil Science
Hats off to Petaholmes for catching on so quick that soil science is not a sub-science of agriculture. This is a common and absolutely understandable mis-conception, as common as considering soil science a sub-discipline of geology. The establishment of the International Union of Soil Sciences in 1927 confirmed soil science as an independent science, separate from the biological sciences and geological sciences. Interesting is that agriculture does not have an independent international union to represent it. Agriculture appears to be, at best, a sub-discipline of the biological sciences. Paleorthid 16:21, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Chemical processes
Changes made today were in response to comments made yesterday by back40 at http://transectpoints.blogspot.com/ Paleorthid 23:57, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Improvement of this article
I have added this article to the long list of targets for improvement listed at WikiProject Science. The intent is to produce articles that meet the standards of a featured article.

The structure and content at www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/10t.html is a decent example of the direction we need to head. Love those geographers!

Paleorthid 01:09, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

What happened to intro?
The first sentence is a mash now IMO. "Soil is...and contains...soil.." ??

There's circular logic in there. Also, soil is earth material? What is "earth material" -- anything that's on planet earth? This needs to be helped along towards becoming a general, (and technically correct) capsule definition, and I think needs some rewording.

Earth material
While I have yet to locate a dictionary definition of earth material, I have verifiable sources that support it being a broad term of longstanding which is commonly recognized for what it is. The most common use of the term is in conjunction with the terms "earth moving equipment" "rammed earth construction" and "compost" 

The term comfortably encompasses both organic and mineral materials. Similar to compost, peat is an earthy material which has no mineral component. Said another way, earthy material is not restricted to mineral dominated materials. This is a longstanding usage. The 1881 Household Cyclopedia has the phrase: "Thin clays and peat earths are more friendly to the growth of oats than of other grains. From:"

Defining soils as a type within would be described as forms of earth is also long standing:

"Soils, the different forms of earth on the surface of the rocks, formed by the breaking down or weathering of rocks. From:"

The term is still in current use among soil scientists but as something distinct from soil :

"Commonly, soil grades at its lower boundary to hard rock or to earthy materials. From Agricultural Handbook 486"

Defining soil is an interesting endeavor when done from an encyclopedic (neutral) point of view. Soil scientists like myself have commonly required a living component to consider a material soil. "Soil without life is just dirt" is one point of view, but not the common point of view.

Common use of the term, soil, is broad. For example, it extends to "moon soil", "soil on Mars" and soiled clothing. Even soil scientists have difficulty being consistently narrow, referring easily to sterilized lab samples as soil, simply because it is what it is. Whenever possible in Wikipedia we need to emphasize the commonly understood meaning of terms. Tying the definition to soil to earthy materials has helped greatly to bridge the differences between the definitions used by soil scientists, civil engineers and newscasters. But in the end, that is currently just one opinion. The soils article has had very few significant editors, and that means that currently, the article is weak. As is any article with less than five significant editors. But its a start. -- Paleorthid 22:46, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Striked ( xxx ) some wording and added ( xxx ) some wording. -- Paleorthid 01:23, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Conclusion: In common parlance, all surficial earth material, (that is, the surface of the land or of the landscape) can be referred to as soil. Moon soil fits this common usage. Layers of earth material at some depth from the surface are not soil because they are not subjected to the dynamic effects of a surface environment. -- Paleorthid 01:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Introduction
I have only recently started to discover WIKIPEDIA and am learning my way arround - not sure if this is the right place to put this, I must also register soon as a proper user...

I am a Geographer/Soil Scientist trained in Germany (Frankfurt University) in German Soil Science (KA 4 - the german Soil Survey Field Manual 4th edition) I am now working for the British Geological Survey establishing a new Programme looking in particular at spatial soil modelling and the knowledge gap between Geological and Soil Sciences, their survey techniques, classifications and outputs in terms of maps and models. I think TWIKIPEDIA has really got me and I intend to dedicate some time towards the grater good and understanding of what we all call the soil...

I have also started to work on the German soil pages and it seems, that the following highest definition of soil could become stable there:

Boden ist die von bodenbildenden Prozessen geprägte Grenzzone zwischen der Lithosphäre (Gesteinsschicht) oder Biosphäre mit der Atmosphäre oder Hydrosphäre. Dieser Bereich (die Pedosphäre) ist meist von Wasser, Luft und Lebewesen durchsetzt.

''Soil is the the zone at the boundary of the Lithosphere or Biosphere with the Atmosphere or Hydrosphere and is, or has been, affected by soil forming (pedological) processes. This zone, the Pedosphere, usually contains water, air and organisms.''

What do people think to this one? When is the right time to add something totally different to the article - I suppose the answer is to be BOLD...

What are the rules in WIKIPEDIA about harmonising articles across the different languages? Can there be cross-linkages?
 * Certainly consistency between articles and having cross linkages is the ideal. -- Paleorthid 22:46, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, another question: how do we avoid contradictions in related articles like "pedogenesis"?
 * Depends on the nature of the contradiction and how extensive it is. The preferred approach is to work it out on the talk page.  If there are contradictions in usage, those can be described.  For example, see agrology. -- Paleorthid 22:46, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the many question

Greetings 81.79.160.94 20:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)Holger

Definition
Could someone provide references for used definition of soil? -- tasc talkdeeds 22:55, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

References added. -- Paleorthid 03:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Improvement of this article (cont.)
I have moved the article structure from the to do list (on this talk page) to the article and have deleted the to do list. This is consistent with the WikiProject Science process of article improvement. It looks a tad barren at this point, but the Project advice is to Be Bold! and do not use a temporary page to develop structure and content. I have also moved the soil article from the restructuring stage to the in progress stage, indicative of filling in the missing sections. I have placed as to anticipated content. -- Paleorthid 19:23, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

HOW OLD IS DIRT?
just one question really... but with all the info here, i really couldn't find it :) if anyone wants to attempt it, i'd be amused -jbk


 * My estimate would be about 4.55 billion years. (The ground has always been there since the Earth was formed, as far as I know). Cowman109Talk 22:36, 10 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I added the following to the article:

Little of the soil continuum of the earth is older than Tertiary and most no older than Pleistocene. . -- Paleorthid 20:57, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Depends on what part of dirt your talking about. At least a proportion will be derived from meteoric dusts and with an age well in excess of 4.5 billion years. In terms of the age of the atoms in dirt then that would go back to the supanova from which our solar system, and others formed.

Soil is a natural entity to be studied as a thing complete in itself
I removed the following from the text because it didn't fit smoothly. Maybe there will be an opportuity to add it back in later..

Understanding soil development is the main repository, if not the refuge, of the concept of soil as a natural entity to be studied as a thing complete in itself.

-- Paleorthid 20:57, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

List of soil types
I removed the following recent change because it doesn't fit the structure of the article nor is the information consistent with other Wikipedia soils-related content. If serious, it appears to be a regional adaptation derived from more formal systems. Please do not repost without discussing it here first.

The main types of soil include: 1. Red soil 2. Black soil 3. Mountain soil 4. Latric soil 5. Alluvial soil 6. Desert soil 7. Western red soil 8. yellow soil

soil why does it mader to us?
soil is cool, if we didn't have soil we would die

soil is?
soil is loose layers of earth where plants grow

soil helps the enviroment. we need it to live and so animals can live too. soil gives us medican and food. without soil we would not be able to surive.

soil is?
I am seriously thinking about removing the earthy section of this article from the front. As discussed by others here before, I don't think it fits well, especially in light of the second paragraph that gives, I think, a very thorough scientific as well as understandable definition of soil. Any opinions?

I also don't think the reference to marsian soil, even though I think it is valid, deserved to feature so high up in this article. Yes, all Soil Scientists know that our Science is yet to mature and therefore become clearer, but why confuse the isuue straight away in the first paragraph?

On the previous discussion on age of soils. The mere deposition of soil/dust fro outer space does not make it a soil in the pedological sense. A pedeological soil has to have undergone soil formation or pedogenesis. These are in situ oxidisation, reduction, podsolisation etc., of parent material, which, yes, will always have a component of space dust and other allochtone (not from there)_ materials. The previous comment, that soils on earth, under the definition of soil scientists, are usually not older than the Tertiary, as older soils have been subject to recurring geological erosional processes through wind, water and ice.

HolgerK 21:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

go for it, it was on my hit list, too. i think the article should launch right into a sound definition of soil.trueblood 17:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation link
As per discussion on WP:DISAMBIG at, reverted the disambiguation link to the single other current meaning for soil. A separate disambig page is not necessary. exolon 16:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Where is says: Soil characteristics Soils tend to develop an individualistic pattern of horizontal zonation under the influence of site specific soil-forming factors. The composition of these individual soil horizons, and their relationship with the soil profile is key to understanding behavior of your self Soil color, soil structure, and soil texture are especially important components of soil morphology.

I don't the reference to "self" makes any sense, but don't know enough to correct the sentence myself.

Assessment comment
Substituted at 22:04, 3 May 2016 (UTC)