Describe how soil formsWhat factors are important?

Answer 1

Soil forms when mixture of weathered rock, organic matter, water, and air support the growth of plants. Factors important includes:1. Parent material: The primary material from which the soil is formed. Soil parent material could be bedrock, organic material, an old soil surface, or a deposit from water, wind, glaciers, volcanoes, or material moving down a slope. 2. climate: Weathering forces such as heat, rain, ice, snow, wind, sunshine, and other environmental forces, break down parent material and affect how fast or slow soil formation processes go. 3. Organisms: All plants and animals living in or on the soil (including micro-organisms and humans!). The amount of water and nutrients, plants need affects the way soil forms. The way humans use soils affects soil formation. Also, animals living in the soil affect decomposition of waste materials and how soil materials will be moved around in the soil profile. On the soil surface remains of dead plants and animals are worked by microorganisms and eventually become organic matter that is incorporated into the soil and enriches the soil. 4. Topography: The location of a soil on a landscape can affect how the climatic processes impact it. Soils at the bottom of a hill will get more water than soils on the slopes, and soils on the slopes that directly face the sun will be drier than soils on slopes that do not. Also, mineral accumulations, plant nutrients, type of vegetation, vegetation growth, erosion, and water drainage are dependent on topographic relief.