CLASSIFICATION OF PARENT

MATERIALS
Parent material is a passive soil formation
factor. It is the material that is altered by the
actions of the other soil formation factors as
soils form.
Parent material is very predictive of soil
outcomes, especially soil texture.
Parent material (p) is the material on which soil forms, namely hard
rock, unconsolidated sediments, or organic remnants.
For a soil that is reforming after severe disturbances or major
climate change, the parent material is the soil that was present at
the beginning of the new state factor assemblage.
Properties of the parent material that exert a profound influence on
soil development include mineralogical composition, degree of
consolidation, porosity, and permeability.
The minerals found in soil but not formed in soil, thus mainly
inherited from the parent material, are referred to as primary
minerals.
Secondary minerals form through substantial chemical or structural
changes of primary minerals or de novo precipitation from ion-rich
solutions during pedogenesis.
The influence of parent material on soil properties is preponderant
in young or relatively immature soils, but it is progressively reduced
by the influence of the other factors.
How various kinds of parent material are formed,
transported, and deposited
1) Residual or sedentary: sediments developed in place
(in situ) from underlying rock over a long period of
intense weathering.
2) Cumulose: organic deposits developed in place from
plant residues that have been preserved by a high water
table, or some other factor that inhibits decomposition.
Examples are peat (undecomposed or slightly
decomposed organic matter) and muck (highly
decomposed organic matter)
3) Transported: loose sediments or surficial material that
were transported and deposited by gravity, water, ice, or
wind. The following table lists transported parent
materials and their modes of deposition.
Residuum
Material that formed from rock weathered in
place.
No transporting agent was involved -Older soils
are often developed from residuum.
Transported
Material that has been transported by some
agent.
The material is often sorted to some degree.

Energy lending processes include:

Gravity
Moving water
Glaciers
Wind
Lacustrine: Material that is moved by water and
deposited in fresh water lakes.
-Coarser particles are close to the shore, fine
particles dominate
toward center of the lake, or layered fine/coarse
clays-silts, varves
Rivers and Streams
Alluvium -Material deposited on flood plains of
active streams.
Usually stratified as different flood episodes
deposit different sized materials at a given site.
 Alluvial Landforms
Alluvial Fans: These materials are often deposited in
fan shaped deposits in high energy environments at
base of slopes
Deltas: Sediment carried by streams deposited in
slower water
Floodplains: Area above rivers and below terraces, the
bottom of a river at flood stage
Terraces: Old abandoned floodplains.
Gravity
Colluvium -Material moved by gravity and
deposited at the base of steep slopes.
Usually very coarse textured.
 Wind
Eolian –Sandy material deposited by wind.
Loess –Silty material deposited by wind
Dune sand -Found at coastal beaches
Volcanic ash -must be near volcano.
Mode of Resulting parent material
deposition
Water  Alluvium (deposited from flowing water)
 Lacustrine (sediments in still water, especially lakes)
 Marine (deposited in oceans or reworked by oceans)

Water and  Outwash (deposited by glacial meltwater)

ice  Glacio-fluvial (interactions between ice and river water)
 Glacio-lacustrine (interactions between ice and lake
water)
 Glacio-marine (interactions between ice and ocean
water)
Ice  Till (or morainal material) 
Wind  Eolian (or loess)
Gravity  Colluvium
Pedochemical weathering
disintegration and chemical modification of minerals
taking place within the soil A and B horizon
Oxidation Reduction Cycle
Alternation between reducing and oxidizing condition
is responsible for the release of Fe and Mn from
primary minerals and their fixation/ localization in the
form of mottles and concretions in the soil solum.
silicate clay destruction process: replacement of
exchangeable Fe upon onset of reducing conditions.
With the return of oxidizing conditions, Fe2+ iron is
displaced and Al appears from the clay lattice to
occupy the exchange sites. This causes destruction and
disintegration of silicate clay minerals.
 Shuttling of Al from clay lattices to hydrous oxides
This process is responsible for the destruction of
montmorillonite clay in the soil profile.
Assume that soil clays are initially saturated with
exchangeable Ca and Mg ions and under acid weathering
conditions these ions are displaced by hydrogen ion.
The hydrogen ion causes instability to the system, bringing
out Al ion from clay lattices with the consequent
disintegration of the clay lattice.
Hydrolysis of this Al ion results in additional hydrogen ions
which further causes weathering of the clay minerals..
Aluminum interlayering of 2:1 clay minerals
pedogenic mineral modification in acid soils is the
precipitation of hydroxy aluminum in the interlayer
spaces of vermiculite and montmorillonite clays.
The Al interlayer clay is known as 2:1 to 2:2
intergrade. As a result the CEC of the clay is reduced
and neutralized. This interlayer Al is slowly to
difficultly exchangeable at the initial stage finally they
become non exchangeable.
 Potassium removal from micas
This process is particularly important in soil profiles which have
high quantity of hydronium ion (H3O+) supplied from biological
resources and a plentiful supply of micas from the parent
materials.
Removal of a small amount of K from the interlayers of mica does
not cause great distortion or loss of alignment of the silica-alumina
packets.
Exchange capacity is increased.
The mineral at this stage is called illite or hydrous mica. With
removal of more than 50% of the interlayer potassium, the sheet
alignment is lost.
With complete removal of K from the interlayer plate, vermiculite
and finally montmorillonite clay minerals are formed.
 Stability Indices and Weathering sequences
Soil minerals can be arranged in an order of their stability or
conversely their weatherability.
The stability series proposed by Goldich (1938) illustrates
the weatherability of the common soil primary minerals and
generally coincides with empirical observations on stability.
In view of the great differences in specific surface area and
the consequent reactivity, it is desirable to separate soil
minerals into two size classes when their weatherability is
considered.
These size classes are: (i) Clay size, and (ii) sand silt size.
The weathering sequences are useful
In determining the general degree of weathering of a
given soil at a given time,
To predict the native nutrient (Soil Fertility) reserves
of soil,
To generalize about the bihaviour of soil (Physical
properties in relation to clay mineral types present),
To assess the effect of various conditions on the path
of soil formation, and
To account for the effect of contribution of minerals
present in the soil parent material