Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 13
Dear Soil, What Is Your Name?
The soil classifi cation systems and the names of classifi cation units (soil classes,
soil types, soil orders, soil families) have been changed many times since the times
of Dokuchaev and Glinka, but in spite of all of them, the scientifi c base remained
still the same: soil names were determined according to the nature and sequence of
horizons and with consideration of soil properties in individual horizons. The
names, especially in Europe, were frequently adopted from popular, everyday
expressions of farmers. To a certain extent many other names were partially or fully
derived from classical languages keeping the main characteristics of soil evolution-
ary processes. Just a few examples follow.
Soils originating on limestone, marl, or dolomite were not deep and easily recog-
nized from the presence of small pieces of sharp-edged fractured rock known as
skeletons. When these soils were plowed, the skeleton particles rubbing against the
plowshare caused a characteristic creaking. Because the popular word for such a
noise in Ukraine and in Poland is
rendzich
, the soil was denoted as
Rendzina
.
Although it could be commonly described as a creak soil, such a rough translation
was not adopted.
In warm humid tropics the strong chemical weathering of silicate minerals
releases oxides and even ions of Fe and Al that subsequently precipitate on surfaces
of the remaining quartz and silicate minerals and causes a rusty red color to appear.
With the precipitate covering mineral surfaces as well as fi lling small pores, the soil
has an appearance similar to that of a well-burned brick. Actually, bricks were cut
and hardened on sun. The Latin for brick is
later
and from it the name of soils was
derived, earlier
Laterite
, now
Latosol
.
Next to the southern part of the Chernozem zone in Russia, there are soils with
an intensive red-brown horizon below their A horizon. With their colors exemplify-
ing those of chestnuts, farmers called them
Kastanozem
soils, or with a simple
translation - chestnut soils. The Russian term was accepted by European soil scien-
tists and fi nally by all soil scientists. Thus, we have up to now the soil type
Kastanozem without translation.
