Five Factors That Interact to Create Soil

Parent Material

• Parent material is the base from which soil develops. This material can be any combination of many different things, including bedrock or organic material. The material more often than not is not derived directly from a rock in one place, but is a combination of deposits from glaciers, air or water, or movement down a slope. Sediments underwater are also created by the gradual grinding down of stone in the water, thus creating soil.

Climate

• Climate has a direct effect on the texture and quality of soil. Both temperature and moisture affect the way in which base minerals are leached of their nutrients and how quickly they are weathered. Rain and snow will break down parent material into soil more quickly than dryer conditions, and wind blows particles away from a soil system, eventually affecting its overall makeup.

Topography

• Where a soil is based in a landscape can have a huge effect on that soil's content. For example, one side of a hill may receive a lot of sun -- drying it and making it more apt to blow or to slide downhill -- while the other side receives almost none. On the same hill, soils at the bottom will be moister than those at the top and will contain more leached minerals as a result of particles falling downhill over time.

Organisms

• From microorganisms to human beings, soil is affected profoundly by living things. The water and types of nutrients a plant needs will be taken from the soil, and a plant will attract various microorganisms to the soil through its growth and decomposition. Waste materials from larger organisms will also change the soil's profile, over time making it richer and essentially bringing nutrients to it at an exponential rate.

Time

• All of the factors listed above are tied together by time and its effect on the soil. Soil formation takes time to begin with, and at the same time is ever-changing. Materials are constantly deposited and removed from a soil's profile, sometimes quickly and sometimes extremely slowly.