Illuvium

Illuvium is material displaced across a soil profile, from one layer to another one, by the action of rainwater. The removal of material from a soil layer is called eluviation. The transport of the material may be either mechanical or chemical. The process of deposition of illuvium is termed illuviation.[1] It is a water-assisted transport in a basically vertical direction, as compared to alluviation, the horizontal running water transfer. The resulting deposits are called illuvial deposits. Cutans are a type of illuvial deposit.[2]

Illuvium includes organic matter, silicate clay, and hydrous oxides of iron and aluminum.

Illuvial deposits of clays, oxides, and organics accumulate in subsoil as distinctive soil horizons classified as "B horizons" or "zones of illuviation".

Mechanical illuviation

When percolating rain water reaches a drier soil horizon, water from the suspension is removed by capillary action of microchannels, leaving fine deposits (cutans) oriented along percolation macrochannels.

Examples

Chemical illuviation

Transport of soil solutes is termed leaching. Soluble constituents are deposited due to differences in soil chemistry, especially soil pH and redox potential.

gollark: The user agent is stupid and would instead be feature flags.
gollark: As of now I believe you can check a bunch of things like that without getting permission to access them.
gollark: To reduce fingerprinting, it would not be possible to even *enumerate* cameras and whatever (they have unique IDs) without the user explicitly granting permissions for the appropriate devices.
gollark: I think this is because there's just one implementation of SQLite or something, but it's a public domain and very good implementation.
gollark: But then, despite *every browser* including SQLite anyway, they made IndexedDB, which is a similar thing but more annoying.

See also

References
  1. Glossary of Terms: I
  2. "Glossary of Soil Science Terms". Soil Science Society of America. Archived from the original on 2006-09-27. Retrieved 2006-11-10.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.