How are the properties of soil affected by the 5 influential factors of soil formation?
1 Answer
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Explanation:
Parent materials affect soil formation by their different rates of weathering, the nutrients they include for vegetational use, and the particle sizes they contain. The less developed a soil is, the greater will be the effect of parent material on the properties of the soil. Clay formation favored by a high percentage of decomposable dark minerals and by less quartz. In slightly weathered soils the parent material might be dominant in determining soil properties.
The activity of biotic factors (living animals and plants) and the decomposition of their organic wastes and residues have marked influences on soil development. Differences in soils that have resulted principally from differences in vegetative cover are specifically noticeable in the transition where trees and grasses meet. Some soils beneath humid forested area many develop many horizons, are leached in the surface layers, and have slowly decomposing organic matter layers on the surface.
Climate is an increasingly dominant factor in soil formation with respect to time passing by. A shallow accumulation of lime in areas having limited rainfall occurs because calcium bicarbonates are not leached if sufficient amount of water is absent. Another point is that erosion of soils on sloping lands constantly removes developing soil layers.
Topography influences soil formation through its associated water and temperature relations. Soils within the same climatic area developing from similar parent material and on steep hillsides typically have thin developing horizons because less water moves vertically through the profile as a result of rapid surface runoff and due to the fact that the surface erodes quite rapidly.
Under ideal circumstances, a noticeable soilprofile may develop within two hundred years. Under less favourable conditions, the time may be extended to several centruries. Soil development proceeds at a rate determined by the effects of time and the intensities of climate and biotic factors, further modified by the effect of land relief on which the soilis located and the kind of parent material from which it is developing.
