Are soil and dirt one and the same, and is it possible to run out of either? Hypothetically speaking, is there a set amount of soil on Earth? How does more soil get generated?
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-Are soil and dirt one and the same
Soil is a technical term which includes stuff that used to be rock, and stuff that used to be alive. Soil can be anything from sand to clay to soft black topsoil. Dirt is essentially a derogatory tern for soil.
How does more soil get generated?
New soil is generated by organisms dying and rotting, as well as rocks falling apart.
-is it possible to run out of either?
Soil is lost when it washes or blows away and ends up at the bottom of a body of water. This is called erosion. Some types of farming, as well as cutting down forests, can make erosion really bad and lead to soil loss. In some places, enough soil has been lost that the area is permanently less fertile, or has even turned into a desert.
Hypothetically speaking, is there a set amount of soil on Earth?
No. If soil is being eroded faster than it is generated the amount of soil can decrease.
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Think about this. The last ice age glacier retreated from Ohio about 14,000 years ago. The glaciers would have destroyed any soil underneath them. The soil depth where I live (region 7) is now 8 foot. https://soilhealth.osu.edu/soil-health-assessment/soil-type-history#:~:text=Region%207%20is%20the%20oldest%20glaciated%20area%20in,the%205-foot%20depth%20contributes%20li
Soil is just dirt with organic material in it.
Dirt is just some composition of clay, silt, and sand.
Clay is just any hydrophilic, self attracting, mineral which has a particulate size .002mm or smaller.(Typically Silica)
Silt is any mineral particulate with a particulate size .002mm to .05mm.
Sand is any mineral with a particulate size .05mm to 2mm
My Soils professor yelled “The only dirt in this classroom is under your fingernails, we study SOIL!”
That said, soil is decomposed rock, if it has organic material in it, it’s Top Soil. You only build with soil.
The word “soil” describes a subset of “dirt”. All soil is dirt, but not all dirt is soil.
All dirt contains a combination of some pulverized rock and some decaying organic debris. If the ratio of organic stuff to rock stuff is such that there’s a lot of organic stuff and only a little rock stuff, we tend to call that kind of dirt “soil”. At the opposite extreme where it’s all pulverized rock with no organic stuff, that stuff we tend to call “sand” (and that some people wouldn’t call “dirt”, as they assume “dirt” implies at least *some* organic stuff.)
But if you’re looking for the dividing line between dirt that has a high enough organic ratio to be called “soil” and dirt that doesn’t, good luck. There isn’t an objective hard line. It’s a fuzzy subjective definition.
Soil is the result of fungi breaking down organic matter. Without mushrooms, there’d be no soil.
it’s hard to tell what you mean dirt is what people keep out of their house. And soil is fertile land in which you can grow stuff. both can be the same but not necessarily. About the generation of soil. at the beging the world was full of dirty (rocks sediment ..) but plants (falling leaves ) mushrooms (decaing stuff) made the world so things can grow. so soil is generated all the time as long as we don’t poison or dring up the planet.
In grad school they told me that dirt was what you wash off your hands when you’re done working in the soil.
Soil has an ecosystem whereas dirt does not, technically the organisms within said ecosystem generate the top layer of dirt into soil.
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