GEOG 1220 Chapter Notes - Chapter Unit 5: Parent Material, Soil Gas, Pedogenesis
12 Feb 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Chapter 5 - soil: soil as a system, soil: complex, plant supporting system that consists of disintegrated rock, organic matter, water, gases, nutrients and microorganisms. Fundamental to support life on earth & grow food for the population: renewable if managed carefully, but easily degraded and at risk in many locations, consists of roughly of half solids, mostly mineral matter w/ organic matters. Important for plant growth b/c they dissolve & mobilize soil constitents that plants use for nutrients: soil gas: the air that fills pore spaces. Oxygen, nitrogen, co2, methane etc. contains gases released from underlying rocks and from above ground: bedrock: continuous mass of solid rock that makes up earth"s crust, weathering: responsible for soil formation. Describes physical, chemical, biological processes that break down rocks & minerals turning large particles into smaller particles: small, loose particles of mineral matter called regolith, physical/mechanical weathering: breaks rocks down without triggering chemical change in parent material.
