Soil Formation deals with qualitative and quantitative aspects of soil formation (or pedogenesis) and the underlying chemical, biological, and physical processes. The starting point of the text is the process - and not soil classification. Effects of weathering and new formation of minerals, mobilisation, transport, and breakdown or immobilisation of dissolved and suspended compounds are discussed. Soil processes and profiles are discussed in relation to the landscape, the geosphere, and the biosphere. Emphasis lies on the universality of soil-forming processes in past and present, and on the soil as a dynamic entity that forms part of the total environment.

Complexity of genetic processes in time and space is given much attention. The text gives many examples from literature and places some in a new light. The reader is guided through the subject matter by a large number of questions and problems to help understand and synthesis the material. Answers to all questions are included. This second edition has been updated to reflect recent discoveries. Printing errors have been corrected, and new photographs support the text.

"Working through the questions and problems in this book would provide a rigorous training for any advanced pedology graduate student (and for many pedology professors as well)."
(David J. Brown, Montana State University, Soil Science Vol. 169 No. 4)

This book consists of papers presented at a symposium "PLANT-INDUCED SOIL CHANGES: PROCESSES AND FEEDBACKS" that was held during the American Society of Agronomy-Soil Science Society of America Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, November 4-8, 1996. The papers were also pub of Biogeochemistry (Vol. 42, nos. 1 and 2, 1998). The lished in a special issue symposium was built on the growing realisation that plant-induced changes in soil feed back in various ways to natural vegetations, giving rise to a plethora of plant-soil interactions beyond the classical one-way cause-and-effect pathways plant-to-soil and soil-to-plant. The aim of this special issue is not in the first place to present new research findings, but to review and discuss the more holistic aspects of plant-soil interactions, providing more room for speculation than do most collections of research papers. After a general introduction which emphasises ecological and evolutionary aspects of plant-soil interac ions (van Breemen and Finzi), three papers deal with particular effects of plants on soil properties: mineralogy (Kelly et al. ), soil structure (Angers and Caron) and soil fertility (Berendse). Next, five papers take up plant-soil interactions in specific biomes: forests (Binkley and Giardina; Gobran et al. ), grasslands (Burke et al.; Epstein et al. ) and deserts (Schlesinger and Pilmanis). Two papers discuss plant-soil interactions via effects of differences in litter quality in specific ecosystems: California's pygmy forest (Northup et al. ) and the Alaskan Taiga (Schimel et al. )."

Soils form a unique and irreplaceable essential resource for all terrestrial organisms, including man. Soils form not only the very thin outer skin of the earth's crust that is exploited by plant roots for anchorage and supply of water and nutrients. Soils are complex natural bodies formed under the influence of plants, microorganisms and soil animals, water and air from their parent material, i.e. solid rock or unconsolidated sediments. Physically, chemically and mineralogically they usually differ strongly from the parent material, and normally are far more suitable as a rooting medium for plants. In addition to serving as a substrate for plant growth, including crops and pasture, soils play a dominant role in the biogeochemical cycling of water, carbon, nitrogen and other elements, influencing the chemical composition and turnover rates of substances in the atmosphere and the hydrosphere. Soils take decades to millennia to form. We tread on them and do not usually see their interior, so we tend to take them for granted. But improper and abusive agricultural management, careless land- clearing and reclamation, man-induced erosion, salinisation and acidification, desertification, air- and water pollution, and withdrawal of land for housing, industry and transportation now destroy soils more rapidly than they can be formed.

This book consists of papers presented at a symposium "PLANT-INDUCED SOIL CHANGES: PROCESSES AND FEEDBACKS" that was held during the American Society of Agronomy-Soil Science Society of America Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, November 4-8, 1996. The papers were also pub of Biogeochemistry (Vol. 42, nos. 1 and 2, 1998). The lished in a special issue symposium was built on the growing realisation that plant-induced changes in soil feed back in various ways to natural vegetations, giving rise to a plethora of plant-soil interactions beyond the classical one-way cause-and-effect pathways plant-to-soil and soil-to-plant. The aim of this special issue is not in the first place to present new research findings, but to review and discuss the more holistic aspects of plant-soil interactions, providing more room for speculation than do most collections of research papers. After a general introduction which emphasises ecological and evolutionary aspects of plant-soil interac ions (van Breemen and Finzi), three papers deal with particular effects of plants on soil properties: mineralogy (Kelly et al. ), soil structure (Angers and Caron) and soil fertility (Berendse). Next, five papers take up plant-soil interactions in specific biomes: forests (Binkley and Giardina; Gobran et al. ), grasslands (Burke et al.; Epstein et al. ) and deserts (Schlesinger and Pilmanis). Two papers discuss plant-soil interactions via effects of differences in litter quality in specific ecosystems: California's pygmy forest (Northup et al. ) and the Alaskan Taiga (Schimel et al. )."

Soil Formation deals with qualitative and quantitative aspects of soil formation (or pedogenesis) and the underlying chemical, biological, and physical processes. The starting point of the text is the process - and not soil classification. Effects of weathering and new formation of minerals, mobilisation, transport, and breakdown or immobilisation of dissolved and suspended compounds are discussed. Soil processes and profiles are discussed in relation to the landscape, the geosphere, and the biosphere. Emphasis lies on the universality of soil-forming processes in past and present, and on the soil as a dynamic entity that forms part of the total environment.

Complexity of genetic processes in time and space is given much attention. The text gives many examples from literature and places some in a new light. The reader is guided through the subject matter by a large number of questions and problems to help understand and synthesis the material. Answers to all questions are included. This second edition has been updated to reflect recent discoveries. Printing errors have been corrected, and new photographs support the text.