What is dirt, what’s it made of and how it forms?
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Minerals from the rain, animal faeces, dead bugs, dead animals, plant matter (like leaves, roots, seeds, fruit, bark, trees) sand, terrestrial and space dust, carbon, rock, metal ores and most likely human pollution. Plus anything else natural that is carried by the wind, rain, human or animal traffic.
Atoms.
Jokes aside,
Dirt is just a byproduct of Erosion of certain substances such as sand, silt, clay and potentially rock. It forms when these substances become eroded over time and naturally combine.
Dirt is made up from two main things: dead stuff, and little bits of rock.
Little bits of rock: When rocks are worn away, they break up into little particles, we know these as sand, silt, and clay. They are deposited onto the surface by a variety of geological processes, they can be washed there in a flood, roll down a slope from higher up, or blow there by wind. But they cover most of the earth, and form the mineral basis or soil.
Dead stuff: When plants and animals die, expel waste, or bits of them fall off, they rot, and turn black and soft. This compost is the black part of soil, and is very good for plants. If you have plants and animals around, then they are constantly dropping stuff onto the ground, producing a steady supply of organic material. If you look at leaf litter in a forest, you can see the fresh leaves on top, then leaves getting steadily more rotten as you go down until you reach the most rotten of all: soil.
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