Integrated Fundamentals of Soil Science: Processes, Properties and Sustainable Management

Soil genesis is a dynamic process through which rock and mineral substrates are transformed into organised soil profiles under the combined influence of parent material, climate, organisms, relief, time, and human activity. This chapter examines the geogenic foundations of soil formation, with emphasis on parent materials, primary minerals, mineral stability, and the development of secondary clay minerals. It explains the physical, chemical, and biological weathering mechanisms that disintegrate and alter rock, including thermal expansion, frost action, salt crystallisation, dissolution, hydrolysis, oxidation–reduction, carbonation, chelation, microbial weathering, mycorrhizal activity, and biological soil crust development. The chapter also applies jenny’s state-factor model to evaluate how climate, biota, topography, lithology, and time interact across landscapes and biomes, while recognising anthropogenic disturbance as an increasingly important soil-forming factor. Major pedogenic processes, including humification, eluviation–illuviation, podzolisation, ferrallitisation, calcification, salinisation, gleisation, paludisation, and anthropogenic pedogenesis, are linked to diagnostic horizons and soil classification systems. The soil profile is presented as an integrated record of environmental history, supported by contrasting examples such as chernozems, oxisols, andosols, and spodosols. Attention is also given to the implications of soil development for carbon storage, nutrient retention, land evaluation, and sustainable management. The chapter concludes by considering modern approaches, including digital soil mapping, geochronological tools, and molecular methods, which improve interpretation of soil formation under changing environmental conditions.