Soils and Geomorphology

By Peter Birkeland

Soils and Geomorphology, now in its third edition, remains popular among soil scientists, geomorphologists, geologists, geographers, and archaeologists. While retaining the useful "factors of soil formation format," it has been extensively revised, incorporating a considerable amount of new research and offering a greater number of topics and examples -- particularly in the chapters "Weathering and Soil Development with Time" and "Topography: Soil Relations with Time in Different Climatic Settings." Greater emphasis is placed on the role of dust in pedogenesis, and new data are included on tropical soil development, global soil-loess relations, neotectonics, and reduction processes. The text discusses field applications such as the use of soils in recognizing climate change, estimating the age of geological deposits, and dealing with environmental problems such as acid rain. New "how-to" appendices on soil descriptions and calculating the profile development index are also included. Soils and Geomorphology is an ideal text for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in courses on pedology, soil science, Quaternary geology, archeology, and sedimentary petrology.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195078861
• ISBN13: 9780195078862
• Release Date: February 1999
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Breadth, Depth, and Specifics

The process is pedogenesis and this book will tell you what you want to know. I'm using this book in a class I am taking and I would recommend it to anyone who is seriously thinking about wanting to understand soils in a more geomorphologic and geologic perspective. Not a light read, but definitely not a traditional textbook either. The extensive references section will also help to lead you in other directions you may wish to take in order to find more on specific studies and research papers.

soil from earth

I read this book for one of my graduate courses. Totaly this is a good book for people who know about soil science, but the weakness of this book is using too much terms which are not explained in this book. So, if you do not have a very good back ground in geology, it will be difficult for you to understand some parts of this book and you need a geology dictionary to read this book.