SOiL

۶۴٬۲۵۷ طرفدار

۲۱ انتشار • فعال از ۲۰۰۱

Soil, also commonly referred to as earth, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, water, and organisms that together support the life of plants and soil organisms. Some scientific definitions distinguish dirt from soil by restricting the former term specifically to displaced soil. Soil consists of a solid collection of minerals and organic matter (the soil matrix), as well as a porous phase (Pore space) that holds gases (the soil atmosphere) and a liquid phase that holds water and dissolved substances both organic and inorganic, in ionic or in molecular form (the soil solution). Accordingly, soil is a complex three-state system of solids, liquids, and gases. Soil is a product of several factors: the influence of climate, relief (elevation, orientation, and slope of terrain), organisms, and the soil's parent materials (original minerals) interacting over time. It continually undergoes development through numerous physical, chemical, and biological processes, which include weathering with associated erosion. Given its complexity and strong internal connectedness, soil ecologists regard soil as an ecosystem. Most soils have a dry bulk density (density of soil taking into account voids when dry) between 1.1 and 1.6 g/cm3, though the soil particle density is much higher, in the range of 2.6 to 2.7 g/cm3. Little of the soil of planet Earth is older than the Pleistocene and none is older than the Cenozoic, although fossilized soils are preserved from as far back as the Archean. Collectively, the Earth's body of soil is called the pedosphere. The pedosphere interfaces with the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere. Soil has four important functions: as a medium for plant growth as a means of water storage, water supply, and water purification as a modifier of Earth's atmosphere as a habitat for soil organisms All of these functions, in their turn, modify the soil and its properties.