News tagged with soil
Soviet find of water on the Moon in the 1970s ignored by the West
(Phys.org) -- In August 1976 Luna 24 landed on the moon and returned to Earth with samples of rocks, which were found to contain water, but this finding was ignored by scientists in the West.
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jun 01, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (39) |
38
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Thawing permafrost 50 million years ago led to extreme global warming events
In a new study reported in Nature, climate scientist Rob DeConto of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and colleagues elsewhere propose a simple new mechanism to explain the source of carbon that fed a ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Apr 04, 2012 |
4.3 / 5 (28) |
47
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Carnivorous plant traps worms with sticky leaves
Plants eat the darndest things. Scientists have discovered a small flowering plant living in the sandy soils of Brazil that traps nematodes, or roundworms, with sticky underground leaves -- and gobbles them ...
Jan 09, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (7) |
4
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Being small has its advantages, if you are a leaf
(PhysOrg.com) -- The size of leaves can vary by a factor of 1,000 across plant species, but until now, the reason why has remained a mystery. A new study by an international team of scientists led by UCLA ...
Jul 06, 2011 |
4.8 / 5 (5) |
0
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Solar wind samples give insight into birth of solar system
(PhysOrg.com) -- Two papers in this week's issue of Science report the first oxygen and nitrogen isotopic measurements of the Sun, demonstrating that they are verydifferent from the same elements on Earth. ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jun 23, 2011 |
5 / 5 (8) |
5
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Ancient plant-fungal partnerships reveal how the world became green
Prehistoric plants grown in state-of-the-art growth chambers recreating environmental conditions from more than 400 million years ago have shown scientists from the University of Sheffield how soil dwelling fungi played a ...
May 15, 2012 |
5 / 5 (5) |
2
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Plant diversity is key to maintaining productive vegetation
Vegetation, such as a patch of prairie or a forest stand, is more productive in the long run when more plant species are present, a new University of Minnesota study shows. The unprecedented long-term study of plant biodiversity ...
May 03, 2012 |
5 / 5 (2) |
2
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WSU astrobiologist proposes fleet of probes to seek life on Mars
A Washington State University astrobiologist is leading a group of 20 scientists in calling for a mission to Mars with "a strong and comprehensive life detection component." At the heart of their proposal ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Apr 23, 2012 |
5 / 5 (2) |
6
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Analysis raises atmospheric, ecologic and economic doubts about forest bioenergy
A large, global move to produce more energy from forest biomass may be possible and already is beginning in some places, but scientists say in a new analysis that such large-scale bioenergy production from ...
Apr 18, 2012 |
4.3 / 5 (3) |
2
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Study: 800-year-old farmers could teach us how to protect the Amazon
In the face of mass deforestation of the Amazon, we could learn from its earliest inhabitants who managed their farmland sustainably. Research from an international team of archaeologists and paleoecologists, ...
Apr 09, 2012 |
5 / 5 (14) |
7
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Conservatism saved Iceland from catastrophe
The people of medieval Iceland survived disaster by sticking with traditional practices, an innovative new study suggests.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Mar 22, 2012 |
4.4 / 5 (17) |
16
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Antibiotic resistant bacteria proliferate in agricultural soils
Infectious diseases kill roughly 13 million people worldwide, annually, a toll that continues to rise, aided and abetted by resistance genes. Now a study, published in the March Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy finds ...
Mar 20, 2012 |
4 / 5 (8) |
0
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Cosmic rays alter chemistry of lunar ice
Space scientists from the University of New Hampshire and multi-institutional colleagues report they have quantified levels of radiation on the moon's surface from galactic cosmic ray (GCR) bombardment that ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Mar 19, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (8) |
1
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Researchers report breakthrough on salt-tolerant durum wheat
A team of Australian scientists has bred salt tolerance into a variety of durum wheat that shows improved grain yield by 25% on salty soils.
Mar 11, 2012 |
5 / 5 (4) |
0
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Natural levels of nitrogen in tropical forests may increase vulnerability to pollution
(PhysOrg.com) -- Waterways in remote, pristine tropical forests located in the Caribbean and Central America contain levels of nitrogen comparable to amounts found in streams and rivers flowing through polluted forests in ...
Mar 06, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
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Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers (soil horizons) of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics. It is composed of particles of broken rock that have been altered by chemical and environmental processes that include weathering and erosion. Soil differs from its parent rock due to interactions between the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and the biosphere. It is a mixture of mineral and organic constituents that are in solid, gaseous and aqueous states. Soil particles pack loosely, forming a soil structure filled with pore spaces. These pores contain sol solution (liquid) and air (gas). Accordingly, soils are often treated as a three state system. Most soils have a density between 1 and 2 g/cm³. Soil is also known as earth: it is the substance from which our planet takes its name. Little of the soil composition of planet Earth is older than Tertiary and most no older than Pleistocene. In engineering, soil is referred to as regolith, or loose rock material.
For more information about Soil, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
