Talk:Soil

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[edit] Band

For the band of the same name, see Soil (band).

Shouldn't this band reference be placed in a seperate new soil dismbiguation? Doesn't relate to topic Gaudete 1/4/07

[edit] Good article

I've passed the Good Article nom for this article; it is extensive, in-depth and well sourced. Further improvements should include merging some of the one sentence paragraphs, but this article has a lot of potential. Laïka 00:15, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Too human-centric

I see that tons of work has gone into this article and I am not any kind of expert on soil. However, one thing does bother me about the article. Most of it focuses on us humans: How we study soil, how we name it and classify it, how we use it and abuse it, and so forth. Soil has been around a lot longer than we have and will, hopefully, still be here after we are gone. I would like to see a little more about how soil is important to the whole natural world, not just to us humans. Steve Dufour 13:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorta related. In the sub article about the creation of soil it mentions it is "anthropogenic". Is this to say that 'humans' made soil? Surely we couldnt have evolved without soil already being there, to support plant life. So how does that work?Crakker (talk) 00:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The science of how soils are created is incredibly complicated so I think that it is sufficient to say "physical, chemical, biological, and anthropogenic" to keep it open to the general public. Crakker, it relates to the fact that humans can change soil to a degree that it is unrecognisable to its original form. There is talk in geological circles to call the last ten thousand years the anthropocene, as there is a distinct geological boundary between pre and post humans. Sippawitz (talk) 23:36, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What is it about soil that attracts the vandals?

Why does this page attract so much vandalism? For the first time in my Wikipedia times, I am beginning to feel a little frustrated about all this. I have removed the dirt joke for the third time in 5 days... HolgerK 19:23, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not broad enough

I hope that you suck the soil scientists who have been the primary authors of this article will accept that their are broader descriptions of the term in common usage: even in common professional usage. A better introductory description would be broader to cover all common usage. From there, sections and subsections could describe in more depth the wide array of detail and considerations as done here.

I think soil scientists would certainly recoil in horror if this topic had been written and recieved GA status as completely written by a crew of geotechnical engineers, geologists, geomorphologist, or glacialogists, let alone drillers, for whom the term "overburden" would suffice.... Drillerguy 17:41, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No, no, no, no, no!

The first sentence of this article is terrible. I don't just mean really, really, bad, I mean it's the worst opening sentence in a wikipedia article I have ever read (out of several thousand) by miles and miles and miles and miles and MILES. Nothing else comes close. I read it twice, and went back to the title of the article, and I still didn't know what the article was about. Please, somebody write a better one-sentence definition, the one we have is jargon-laden and incomprehensible. I'm not even going to attempt the rest of the paragraph. Edit: Does anybody know if the Bulmer-Lytton prize accepts encylopedia opening sentences? Macguba 17:32, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I tried a while back and broke it up a little since I agree the original was tortured. Realizing it still ain't the best I hope the new first paragraph removed it from your no, no, no, no, no! category to merely no, no, no! Drillerguy 18:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Civil engineering project

If, in the future, someone tries to get this article up to FA status again, I think that I, and probably other people at WP:CE, would be willing to help broaden the scope of this article to include knowledge from the fields of geotechnical engineering and soil mechanics. -- Basar (talk · contribs) 01:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, some people from WP:GEOLOGY may be interested in expanding the formation of soil information, and WP:BIOL participants and sub-participants might be interesting in writing about the non-human uses of soil as asked for above. -- Basar (talk · contribs) 20:51, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] De-list GA

I normally do not like to add negativity to Wikipedia, but I feel that this article should be delisted from the GA list due to its issue of not being broad in coverage per the posts above; this is criterion 3 of the GA criteria. Consequently, it may also not pass criterion 4 because of its bias towards soil science. – Basar (talk · contribs) 05:34, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

P.S. The article's original main editor is no longer on Wikipedia to correct these issues. – Basar (talk · contribs) 05:35, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
First, this should be addressed to the Wikiproject:Soil referenced above. Secondly, I agree with you Basar that this article is incomplete addressing the general topic and needs lots of work. However, rather than going backward, I would like your opinion on the following proposal: Drillerguy 12:57, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect "Soil" to disamb page and rename this one "Pedosphere" or Soil (Soil Science)

I think the topic "soil" is itself extremely broad and a comprehensive article is going to take a long time to achieve. I'm more inclined to cut the original authors slack and just help to add what I can. Either that, or different aspects could be broken out. The term "Soil" is such a broad topic that it may be akin to electricity or computer software or (a better example as an article) welding. Better than that, this topic probably needs to direct to its own disambiguation page and proceed along the path taken by water. This particular article could then address the topic from the standpoint of pedosphere or even be NAMED "pedosphere" to replace what is there as that article is basically a stub. Renamed, with the inclusion of additional aspects of biology, ecology and geology (and more references), and having the parts relating to other aspects of soil removed I think this article would actually be FA status. Granted, that is still a lot of work, but more likely achievable. I think a completely comprehensive "Soil" article would be a herculean effort. Drillerguy 12:34, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, my thoughts are that we should retain a single article on soil, but that we should expand it to incorporate more aspects of soil. My reason for this view is that there is only one thing called "soil", and I think we should be able to write a single article on it, even if it is difficult. This is also the way all of the similar articles I know are arranged. The article water, which you mentioned, is probably even more difficult than soil, but it has a single article that covers many, very diverse aspects of the subject. This is also the way things have been done in the other articles you have mentioned too; these articles just have sub-articles to discuss particular aspects of the subject just like we have soil mechanics and soil compaction to discuss particular aspects of soil. I do not know what to do with the article pedosphere because I am not very familiar with the term, but from what I see in the article, it seems like we can just redirect it here because it seems more than less synonymous with soil. – Basar (talk · contribs) 05:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
There are actually various definitions for the term "soil". Soil has a different meaning for Soil Science, Civil Engineering and Geology. Consequently, there should be separate articles, linked from soil (or a section within the article) which would deal with the implications of these meanings of soil, e.g. Soil(engineering). I will now quote from the book by Tschebotarioff [1] "In agricultural soil science the term soil is applied only to the thin upper part of the mantle-rock penetrated by the roots of plants, which supplies them with the water and other substances necessary of their existence." For civil engineering "..This term includes all the loose or moderately cohesive deposits, such as gravel, sands, silts, , or clays, or any other mixtures".
And from Holtz and Kovacs's book: [2] "Soil, in an engineering sense, is the relatively loose agglomerate of mineral and organic materials and sediments found above the bedrock...". "Soils to a geologist are just decomposed and disintegrated rocks generally found in the very thin upper part of the crust and capable of supporting plant life. Similarly, pedology (soil science) and agronomy are concerned with only the very uppermost layers of soil, that is, those materials relating to agriculture and forestry". - Sanpaz 03:12, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Those quotes are interesting, but I think we should still have a single page that describes these different definitions and perspectives. My reasoning is that it is not Wikipedia's style to fork a topic into several pages to present the varying definitions and points of view on a subject. Rather, it is recommended that we integrate and explain these differences. The guideline page describing Wikipedia's preferences is at WP:CFORK. I think this would be a light example of a fork, not the more serious type dealing with positive and negative aspects of subjects. – Basar (talk · contribs) 06:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I understand your point Basar. I do not see this as forking content. We are not dealing here with opinion but rather with scope. The current article deals strictly with soil as dealt by Pedology. Therefore, it should be rename as Soil(science). There should be another article Soil(engineering); and if necessary a Soil(geology). But all of these three articles should be linked from one single article called 'Soil', which would explain or state the differences in scope of these definitions. I am new to this article, and I can see that it is a difficult topic to handle. What do you guys think? Sanpaz 14:54, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
There are certainly some aspects of 'soils' that are general to all three definitions. Those are perhaps the things that should be included in the unique soil article. Sanpaz 17:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
The different definitions/approaches to "soil" is part of the interesting aspect of the topic, that is why I would prefer the approach described by Sanpaz: a new, broad article referencing other articles which can go in greater depth without causing confusion to the general reader. Basar it sounds like that is what you favor too? Drillerguy 17:27, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Like Basar, I feel that we should retain a single article on soil, and broaden its base. Take the content headed "soil classification" for example. This soil article content is strictly pedology oriented, but the main article (soil classification) is not. Bringing in the engineering content (and toning down the pedological perspective) could be fairly straight forward. I see too much overlap in public perception of the disciplines to reliably distinguish Soil(science) from Soil(engineering) from Soil(geology). There are articles where it is informative to sharpen those distinctions, but I don't think this (soil) is it. Paleorthid (talk) 06:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Revised: better to move the classification content to soil science, at least for now. -- Paleorthid (talk) 19:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


I have a lecturer who is a geophysicist who states that soil is everything between the bedrock and the air. It is sufficiently broad that it captures all disciplines without being too focussed on just one. Sippawitz (talk) 23:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Working to GA status

I am considering how I can improve this article in response to the concerns that Basar gave when it was delisted. I have summarized those, and other concerns, on the article comment page. I have copied the article to my sandbox and have started in on deconstructing the beast. I plan on using a heavy hand on the soil science, pedology (soil study), and pedosphere-driven portions. The techno-jargon index is going to drop. Cultural impacts and soil characteristics are going to get refined down to fewer words. -- Paleorthid (talk) 20:51, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Replaced soil definition with: "a naturally occurring, unconsolidated or loose material on the surface of the earth, capable of supporting life." Variations of this definition are showing up in K-12 soil lessons. It is, admittedly, a soil science centric definition (with a nod to biologists and ecologists per the cited reference). However, the soil-science-perspective on soil seems to be particularly popular with elementary school educators, and this general acceptance satisfies WP:NPOV. -- Paleorthid (talk) 06:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
    I think it is a good definition of soil under the scope of soil science. However, as I stated in the discussion above (dated September 18), "Soil has a different meaning for Soil Science, Civil Engineering and Geology". In other words, the term 'soil' has a different scope for each discipline. I still feel that it is necessary to make clear that there are these different scopes. Sanpaz (talk) 16:22, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
    I posted it not because it was a good definition of soil under the scope of soil science, but because it was in general use. If, and when, there is a definition that better captures general acceptance, it should replace this one. Agree that it is desirable to have some article content on the different scopes, as long as it doesn't go into mind numbing differences, which is what we have within the soil science profession. pedology favors "subject to weathering" or the self-referential "to soil formation" The taxonomist subset of pedology (eg NRCS) like to insert terms like "natural bodies", ag soils folks favor "growing plants" with no mention of wee beasties, which is huge to soil ecologists and soil biologists. A small minority of soil scientists favor an emphasis on energy flux over weathering and life. They are among the few that accept lunar soil as soil, and tend to be involved with lunar and martian surface characterization. I assume some CEs and geologists also accept lunar and martian soil as soil, but haven't seen anything in the news about that. Most soil scientists do not accept the term: it's regolith to most of us. Newscasters do, so I expect that makes the lunar soil term valid from the "general acceptance" requirement of WP:NPOV. Sorry for the ramble: its a favorite subject. -- Paleorthid (talk) 19:01, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Moved soil science text out of the article per my NPOV concerns & concerns with scope by other editors. (100% completed):
  1. Intro paragraph on soil science research. -- Paleorthid (talk) 21:54, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
  2. Classification section. -- Paleorthid (talk) 01:21, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
  3. Paragraph on mapping. -- Paleorthid (talk) 01:35, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
  4. Content on classification in the In nature section -- Paleorthid (talk) 01:45, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
  5. Data section. Land degradation section. -- Paleorthid (talk) 02:06, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
  6. Fields of study section. History section. -- Paleorthid (talk) 02:15, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Reorganized and rewrote for readability (Complete as of January 1, 2008):
  1. Soil formation section. (encouraged WP:GEOLOGY to edit mercilessly). -- Paleorthid (talk) 01:06, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
  2. Rewrote introduction for readability, simplified. added refs. -- Paleorthid (talk) 01:30, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
  3. Characteristics section summarized. -- Paleorthid 21:22, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
  4. Uses section distilled down to bare essentials. Added {{expand-section}} with request for examples of use. With multiple editor input the resulting content should be better balanced. -- Paleorthid (talk) 05:45, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Expanding article scope

I have placed the article in the new Category:Soil, a sub-category of both Category:Natural materials and Category:Natural resources. I see expanding the scope of the article under a "Material" section, to address the engineering and technical uses of soil, and under a "Resource" section to address the biological, environmental and ecological role of soil. Content from soil mechanics could be summarized for the opening of the material section. -- Paleorthid 20:43, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Contentious paragraph?

"A serious and long-running water erosion problem is in China, on the middle reaches of the Yellow River and the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. From the Yellow River, over 1.6 billion tons of sediment flow each year into the ocean. The sediment originates primarily from water erosion in the Loess Plateau region of northwest China."

I didn't know naturally occurring events were problems. Sediment flowing into the ocean is quite normal, it has occurred in all times at all places, and as such is an important feature of fisheries. If environmental outflows are stopped fisheries collapse. That is of course unless the erosion is anthropogenic, but that is another problem altogether and should be addressed as such. Sippawitz (talk) 23:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Subheading

I know this might be too soil scientitish, so I thought I'd put it out there before I made a new subheading. An extremely important part of agriculture and soil science is knowing what kind of soils are what. Perhaps a mention that there are different kinds of soils, then link it to a whole new article elucidating soil structures such as black vertosols, rudosols, tenosols etc. This is extremely important as this could help in the decision making process for soil management. This could link in directly with the soil horizons link. That needs better representation, not a little link under a figure in the characteristics section. Sippawitz (talk) 23:44, 21 May 2008 (UTC)