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This is the best graphic to date to outline early soil evolution - from Royal Society
Soil can be considered as a 'living entity'
Living entity
Living entity
In the previous century, there two main theories of soil science were to do with rock weathering and systems for balancing nutrients. Then a group of Russians came along and said soil was an ‘entity’. 'Entity’ is a useful term for soil as soil does not have such an organised structure like an organism but has more structure than an ecosystem. An ‘entity’ says it is something we can identify and study as a discrete body. Later the term 'living entity' was coined (by Hyams) . If it is a living entity, and you believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution, soil must have evolved. Yet I don't think there is an overall description of how all that life and all the various processes in soils came into being. Soil is similar all over the world. How did that happen ? This site attempts to work out just that.
Today many people, who agree with soil as a living entity, see it mainly as worms and microbes, a sort of ‘microbial mush’. Yet the soil consists of amazing strong 3D structures for small creatures and other organisms to live. It is much more than a 'mush', more like city. How did this happen?
Soil Formation
Soil Formation
If you search for 'soil evolution' on your favourite search engine, it often leads to 'soil formation'. This describes how five “state factors” - parent material, topography, climate, organisms, and time produce the various well characterised soil types. This takes place over hundreds or thousands of years and much of the science of soil - pedology - occupies itself with this soil formation.
Here we go back much further. 'Soil evolution' looks to work out when, where and how the soil functions that enable that formation came into being. The particular organisms and processes that turn sand silt and clay into the various soil types all over the world came into being during the last half billion years. We are going to pick up all sorts of recognised scientific research, from decades ago to the most recent times, to try and piece together how soil developed into the hidden living entity beneath our feet today.
Forces that form soil types
Where quadrillions of creatures run round
Creatures
Creatures
Out of sight, there are ‘quadrillions’ (in UK alone) of creatures with bodies legs and eyes, moving around all the time and all over the world in just about every nook and cranny. Their total weight is equal to earthworms in any given amount of soil, only there are thousands more of them. These arthropods have been around much longer than earthworms and play a key part constructing the soil civilisation. They have vital relationships with the plant roots, bacteria and fungi in soils. Yet, it is only recently these soil invertebrates are getting the attention they deserve.
Ground Breaking
Ground Breaking
I wish we had a soilscope that we could put into the ground and see what is going on. Despite all sorts of 'scopes', for looking into space, down peoples' throats, and round corners, we have never invented one for soil. If only we could look into that world. But we have not conquered the laws of light to see into the dark underworld..
And nobody has thought to look backwards hundreds of millions of years to see how the soil came to be here. All those tons of life. As a living entity it must have evolved. But which functions came first, when were the first small animals. What came first - AMF or nitrogen fixing nodules? They are related but AMF was on the earth three hundred million years before nitrifying bacteria..
Waiting to be discovered
What on earth has gone on underground for millions of years, out of sight and virtually unknown?
Scientific sleuthing
Scientific sleuthing
We are going to use old-fashioned detective work, along with state of the art science, that can see beyond the human eye, to unearth what has gone on in the past. We will leave no stone unturned. As a scientific sleuth I want to use all the techniques and tools, particularly those involving fossil evidence and molecular mapping, to discover what went on. New techniques, like metagenomics, are emerging to map soils, but they do not have the definition of those old fashioned skills that recognise the shapes moving about. I want you to join me, just like most detectives have an assistant to point out their errors, to help ascertain the available evidence uncovered as to what is going on, and what has gone on to get here to create the soil we know.
You can evaluate the work this scientific sleuth is uncovering. To make sense of this hidden world, lots of different perspectives are needed. Can you bring yours to see this world from different angles, where the creatures are barely visible. As much as possible, evidence will all come from peer reviewed work. However when reading that work, imagine you are looking down a long pipe, and you cannot see the rest of the goings on outside that pipe. That is what scientists have to do. What we have to do is make the connections between what can be seen down those pipes, but also what goes on between the pipes - which we cannot see. Our job is to put all those insights together. Pick up the challenge here.
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