Process of soil formation

Good day steemit friends. We make use of soil almost on a daily basis, soil do not just appear over night, there are many natural processes involved in making the soil we use.
Soil formation involves the mixing up of five elements namely; inorganic materials, organic matter, water, air and microorganisms.

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Climate is the most potent factor in this process of soil formation and there are three stages involved in it:

stages of soil formation

Firstly, the parent rock is weathered and the broken up inorganic materials accumulate in situ, or the weathered particles are carried from some other place and deposited where the soil is to be formed.

In the second stage, vegetable or animal remains decay by heat and moisture and are further decomposed by the soil microorganisms to form the organic matter or humus in the soil.
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Lastly, the inorganic particles and the organic matter then organic matter then get mixed up in three main ways:

• Underground water carry about the former mechanically in a process called eluviation.
• Percolate down with the latter in the solution process known as leaching.
• Burrowing animals like worms, crickets and bush rats pulverize the earth or physically transport one part of the earth to another. This mixing up finally produces the soil.

These three main stages of soil formation I have described above take a very long time to accomplish. When the process has been completed or nearly so, and the soil elements have not been thoroughly mixed up, we say that the soil is mature or zonal. Otherwise, the soil is described as immature or azonal. Tropical and temperate soils are generally mature while alluvial and desert soils are normally immature.