Soil can exist as a naturally occurring material in its undisturbed state, or as a compacted material. Geotechnical engineering involves the understanding and prediction of the behavior of soil. Like other construction materials, soil possesses mechanical properties related to strength, compressibility, and permeability. It is important to quantify these properties to predict how soil will behave under field loading for the safe design of soil structures (e.g. embankments, dams, waste containment liners, highway base courses, etc.), as well as other structures that will overly the soil. Quantification of the mechanical properties of soil is performed in the laboratory using standardized laboratory tests. <...>

Laboratory data are critical to the understanding of the properties and genesis of a single pedon, as well as to the understanding of fundamental soil relationships based on many observations of a large number of soils. The development of laboratory methods, the analytical database, and the soil relationships based on those data are the cumulative effort of several generations of scientists.

The term "soil" has many definitions, depending upon who is using the term. For example, to engineers "soil" is unconsolidated surficial material, whereas to many soil scientists it is mainly the medium for plant growth. A definition of soil that serves our purpose well is a slight modification of that given by Joffe'": a soil is described as a natural body consisting of layers or horizons of mineral and/or organic constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent material in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical properties and their biological characteristics; at least some of these properties are pedogenic (Fig. 1-1). Soil horizons generally are unconsolidated, but some contain sufficient amounts of silica, carbonates, or iron oxides to be cemented <...>

Soils: Genesis and Geomorphology is a comprehensive and accessible textbook on all aspects of soils.

The book’s introductory chapters on soil morphology, physics, mineralogy and organisms prepare the reader for the more advanced and thorough treatment that follows. Unlike other books on soils, the authors devote considerable space to discussions of soil parent materials and soil mixing (pedotur-bation), along with dating and paleoenvironmen-tal reconstruction techniques. Theory and processes of soil genesis and geomorphology form the backbone of the book, rather than the emphasis on soil classification that permeates other soils textbooks. This refreshingly readable text takes a truly global perspective, with many examples from around the world sprinkled throughout.