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Soils are always forming, and so are we
Soil is one of my most important teachers. Studying soils through a scientific lens has opened my eyes to the diversity of soil forms and the complexity of their functions. Beyond that, soil has also taught me more about my place in the world.
Soils are the living breathing skin of the Earth. They are complex, natural systems that exist in stunning variation across a landscape. Soils vary in their colors, shapes, and forms. They arise from the weathering of diverse geologies that move through landscapes in sometimes unexpected ways.
Soil scientists extract clues from the physical properties of a soil (how a soil looks, feels, smells, sounds) to infer how that soil may have formed. For example, we can infer that soils that contain many rounded pebbles that are stratified in distinct layers formed from the action of moving water, like a river. Soils are like a puzzle, and learning the properties allows you to begin to put together the pieces of how that soil got there.
Soil formation, however, is not static. Soils do not just form over time and then stop in a given state.
Soils are constantly changing. Often this happens at rates slower than we can see with our own eyes. Even so, the processes that formed that soil in the first place are still occurring. Soil scientists categorize soil forming processes into four general categories:
additions: things coming into the soil
losses: things leaving the soil
translocations: things moving within the soil
transformations: things changing within the soil
The soils we see out in nature are the net effect of interactions between these four processes. Every soil continues to take in additional material, lose material, translocate material vertically and horizontally, and transform material into new states. These changes arise from both natural causes and human interventions. Either way, soils are dynamic systems.
I learned this fundamental principle of soil science early on in my career. It shifted my perspective from seeing soils as a passive medium for plant growth towards a recognition that soils are deeply complex and far from stagnant.
