1. Introduction, Soil Minerals

1. Solid phase (organic matter)

2. Liquid phase (solution)

3. Gaseous phase (O2/CO2)

1. Food production (99.7%)

2. Fibres

3. Fuel

4. Infrastructures

5. Nutrient cycling (N, P, C, S)

6. Filter/water storage - filter potential pollutants

7. Key role in the environment

1. Climate - rain, wind, temperature, radiation

2. Topography - relief, slope, characteristics

3. Organisms - flora, fauna, humans

4. Parent material - geology

5. Time

Naming system - describe and identifies soil orders

Contamination

Minerals are aggregates of rocks - they make it up.

-Naturally occurring

-Solid

-Inorganic

-Specific chemical composition - formula

-A regular atomic arrangement - crystalline 

Primary minerals: From parent material. E.g. quartz, feldspar

Secondary minerals: From components of primary minerals. E.g. Fe (iron) and Al (aluminium) oxides.

-Silicon fits neatly into the hole made when 4 oxygen atoms (positively charged) arrange themselves as a tetrahedron. 

-Building block of all silicates

-Tetrahedron's positive charge (Si++++) can combine with the negative charge (metals).

1. Fe (iron)

2. Mg (magnesium)

3. Al (aluminium)

4. K (potassium)

5. Na (sodium)

6. Ca (calcium)

Pyroxene group.

Amphibole group. (perfect cleavage)

Micas, clays.

-Tetrahedrons linked by 3 oxygens with perfect cleavage.

Quartz, feldspar.

-Tetrahedron linked by 4 oxygens.

Al and Fe oxides.

-Hematite (Fe2O3), red in colour.

-Goethite

-Living component - bacteria, organisms, humus matter, residues.