ACCT 2220 Study Guide - Final Guide: Parent Material, Weathering, Pedogenesis

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Accounting
• Course: ACCT 2220
• Professor: Adeel Mahmood

Document Summary

Soil development can be considered in two phases: the formation of soil parent material and the subsequent alteration of that parent material by various soil forming processes. Generally, five major factors of soil formation are recognized. Time: these factors can function independently (eg. texture of parent material leads directly to texture of soil) and also interdependently (eg. plant remains are decomposed according to climate to contribute organic matter to the soil) Parent material is the starting point for soil formation. It has two very important influences on soil: chemical composition and particle size. The chemical and mineralogical characteristics of the parent material are controlled by the nature of the original rocks and minerals they are composed of. The wide variety of rocks on earth are classified as igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic depending on how they are formed. Rocks are further altered by physical weathering (disintegration into smaller particles) and chemical weathering (decomposition releasing soluble materials and synthesizing new minerals)