ORIGIN SOIL

Learning Outcomes
Able to discuss the formation of natural soil deposits

Soil are formed the physical and chemical weathering of rocks (gravel, sand , silts, clays)

Weathering
breaks down and alters rocks and minerals at or near the earth's surface and is divided into
physical/mechanical weathering and chemical weathering.

Physical Weathering or Mechanical Weathering

processes that break a rock or reduction of size without any change in the original composition
of the parent
Main agents
Abrasion
When rocks collide one another or scrap against each other, their exposed
surfaces can be chipped or fractured.
Exfoliation
Outer layers of rocks peel off like an onion
Frost Across
when liquid water goes into cracks and then freezes causing the cracks to get
wide
Organic Activity
These may include: Root Pry (Plant Activities) Burrowing (Animal Activities)
Mining/Construction (Human Activities)
Hydraulic Action
occurs when water (generally from powerful waves) rushes rapidly into cracks in
the rock face, thus trapping a layer of air at the bottom of the crack, compressing
it and weakening the rock. When the wave retreats, the trapped air is suddenly
released with explosive force.
Haloclasty (Salt Weathering)
when saline solution seep into cracks and joints in the rocks and evaporate,
leaving salt crystals behind. These salt crystals expand as they are heated up,
exerting pressure on the confining rock.
Or else unloading, erosion, freezing, and thawing

Chemical Weathering
causes both reductions in size and chemical alteration of the parent rock. Or decomposition of
materials by a series of chemical reactions that result in the rust on cars or the corrosion or
staining of building facades.
Main agents
Carbonation - decomposition of calcite (calcium carbonate) to calcium bicarbonate.
Oxidation - oxygen combines with iron in rocks, it changes into iron oxide (rust).
Hydration

Factors in Soil Formations

• Climate and time
• Biota Factor
• Parent Material
• Topography

Soil Deposition is a geological process in which sediments, soils, and rocks are added or to form a
landform or land mass.

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Soils Produced by Weathering and Deposition

1. Residual Soils – soils that remain where they were formed, simply overlying the rock from which
they came from
2. Transported Soils – soils formed when rock weathers at one site and the particles are moved to
one location

Residual Soil Deposits Deposited at the place of decomposition or weathering

a. Coarse- Grained Soils. Depends on the size of the particle.

b. Fine- Grained Soils Greatly influenced by mineral content, moisture content, etc.

Types of transported soils with regards to the agents

1. Gravity deposits – soil deposits transported by the effect of gravity. (ex. Landslide)
2. Alluvial deposits – soils carried and deposited by flowing water (running Water)
3. Glacier deposits – result from the action of glaciers
4. Wind deposits (aeolian deposits) – deposits that have wind as the transporting agent (ex. Dunes)

Soil profile is a natural succession of zones or strata below the ground surface and represents the
alterations in the original soil material which have been brought about by weathering processes

Typical Soil Profile

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STRUCTURE OF SOILS
arrangement and state of aggregation of soil grains.
Structural composition: important engineering properties
Permeability
compressibility
shear strength.

Soil Structure
• refers to the arrangement of particles in soils (sand, silt, clay, and organic matter) .
• Soil structure will also influence water movement

List of Aggregates into porous compounds which are separated by pores and cracks.
• Sand
• Silt
• Clay
• Organic matter

The behavior of the individual soil particle and their interaction with another particle is influenced by the
following forces:

1. Weight of the particle due to gravitational force, Fg

2. Particle surface forces, due to surface electrical forces, Fs

Soil Type - gravel, sand, silt, or clay

Organizations have developed particle-size classifications
▪ Massachusetts Institute of Technology
▪ U.S. Department of Agriculture
▪ American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
▪ U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
▪ U.S Bureau of Reclamation.

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Gravels
are pieces of rocks with occasional particles of quartz, feldspar, and other minerals.

Sand particles
are made of mostly quartz and feldspar

Silts
are the microscopic soil fractions that consist of very fine quartz grains and some flake-shaped particles
that are fragments of micaceous minerals.

Clays
are mostly flake-shaped microscopic and submicroscopic particles of mica, clay minerals, and other
minerals.

Soil Structure can be described in terms of the following:

1. Grade – degree of aggregation
2. Class – average size
3. Type of aggregates – forms

Grade of structure
expresses the difference on cohesion within aggregates and adhesion between aggregates.

Four major grades of structure:

• Structureless – no observable aggregation
• Weak – poorly formed
• Moderate – formed from aggregates that are moderately durable
• Strong – formed from aggregates that are durable

Class of structure
describes the average size of individual aggregate.

Five classes of structure

• Very fine or very thin
• Fine or thin
• Medium
• Coarse or thick
• Very coarse or very thick

Type of structure
describes the form or shape of individual aggregates

Types of soil structure

• Granular – found in A horizon
• Blocky – found in B horizon
• Prismatic – found in B horizon
• Platy – found in A horizon, greatly found on forest
soils
• Columnar – found in B horizon, found in compacted
soils
• Single-grained – found in sandy soil

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Soil Composition
• the combinations of these determine the soil’s properties such as texture, structure, porosity, and color.

• A mass of soil includes accumulated solid particles or soil grains and the void spaces that exist between
the particles

Mixture of mineral matter, organic matter, water, and air.

• Weathered rock particles (minerals) is the main ingredients (about 45%)
• Organic Matter (about 5%)
• Water (about 20% to 30%)
• Air (about 20% to 30%)

Void spaces
may be partially or completely filled with water or some other liquid.
not occupied by water or any other liquid are filled with air or some other gas

Three-phase System
solid, liquid and gas

Fully saturated’ or merely ‘saturated

When the soil voids are completely filled with water, the gaseous phase being absent,

Dry Soil
When there is no water at all in the voids, the voids will be full of air, the liquid phase being absent

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Mineralogy of Soil Solids
Soils are formed from weathering of rocks which contains a lot of different minerals. The minerals present
in soils are small which dominate the clay portion of soil. Chemical properties of soil are determined by the
minerals present in soil

Two classifications of minerals based on origin (Berkowitz et al, 2008):

1. Primary minerals
a. those which are not altered chemically since the time of formation and deposition; non-clay minerals
with low surface area and with low reactivity; affect the physical transport of liquid and vapors.
i. examples: quartz, feldspar, alumino silicates, micas, amphibole, etc.

2. Secondary minerals
a. formed by decomposition and chemical alteration of primary minerals; clay minerals with high
surface area and high reactivity that affect the chemical transport of liquid and vapor.
i. Examples: Kaolinite, smectite, vermiculite, gibbsite, calcite, gypsum, etc

Clay minerals
are of great importance to geotechnical and geo-environmental engineers due to the complex behavior
that it exhibits.

Clay minerals are complex aluminum silicates composed of two basic units:

• silica tetrahedron,
• alumina octahedron.

Each tetrahedron unit consists of four oxygen atoms surrounding a silicon

atom.

The combination of tetrahedral silica units gives a silica sheet.

Three oxygen atoms at the base of each tetrahedron are shared by

neighboring tetrahedra.

The octahedral units consist of six hydroxyls surrounding an aluminum atom

The combination of the octahedral aluminum hydroxyl units gives an

octahedral sheet. This also is called a gibbsite sheet.

Sometimes magnesium replaces the aluminum atoms in the octahedral units;

in this case, the octahedral sheet is called a brucite sheet.

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 Elemental Silica-Gibbsite Sheet
In a silica sheet, each silicon atom with a positive charge of four
is linked to four oxygen atoms with a total negative charge of
eight. But each oxygen atom at the base of the tetrahedron is
linked to two silicon atoms. This means that the top oxygen
atom of each tetrahedral unit has a negative charge of one to be
counterbalanced. When the silica sheet is stacked over the
octahedral sheet, as shown in Figure e, these oxygen atoms
replace the hydroxyls to balance their charges.

(a) Silica tetrahedron; (b) silica sheet; (c) alumina octahedron; (d) octahedral (gibbsite) sheet; (e) elemental
silica-gibbsite sheet (After Grim, 1959. With permission from ASCE.)

Basic Properties of Some Typical Clays

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 Summary of Important Clay Minerals

Important Properties of Clay Minerals

Specific Surface Area (SSA)

• surface area of soil particles per unit mass (or volume) of dry soil.
• The unit is in m^2/g or m^2/m^3.
• High SSA is associated with high soil-water-contaminant interaction which indicates high
reactivity.

Plasticity and Cohesion

• Plasticity in clay is induced by the attraction of water towards its surface by adsorption.
• Plasticity increases with SSA.
• Apparent cohesion is developed in clays since water in clays exhibits negative pressure in which
two particles are held close to each other

Swelling and shrinkage

• When some clay minerals are exposed to moisture they are subjected to excessive swelling and
undergo excessive shrinkage during drying.
• This behaviors affect a lot of engineering properties of soil, hence the stability of the structure
founded on this soils are at stake.
• The swelling of clay minerals decreases in the order montmorillonite> illite> kaolinite.

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Soil Identification in the field
The predominant soil types based on texture are identified by inspection.
• Gravels and sands are gritty and the individual particles are visible.
• Silts easily crumble, and water migrates to the surface on application of pressure
• Clays fail this water migration test since water flows very slowly through clays. Clays feel smooth,
greasy, and sticky to the touch when wet but are very hard and strong when dry

Common descriptive terms and methods of identification are as follows.

Color
not directly related to engineering properties of soils, but is related to soil mineralogy and texture.
Gray and bluish: unoxidized soils
White and cream: calcareous soils
Red and yellow: oxidized soils
Black and dark brown: soils containing organic matter

Moisture
Appearance due to water is described as wet, dry, or moist.

Structure:
Homogeneous: Color and texture feel the same throughout.
Nonhomogeneous: Color and texture vary.

Shape:
Angular, subangular, subrounded, rounded, flaky.

Weathering:
Fresh, decomposed, weathered.

Carbonate:
Effervesces with acid. Add a small amount of hydrochloric acid and check if soil effervesces. If it does, it
contains carbonate.

Smell:
Organic soils give off a strong odor that intensifies with heat. Nonorganic soils have a subtle odor with
the addition of water.

Feel:
Use feel to distinguish between sand, silts, and clays.
Sand has a gritty feel. Silt has a rough feel similar to fi ne sandpaper.
Clay feels smooth and greasy. It sticks to fingers and is powdery when dry.

Consistency:
Very stiff: Finger pressure barely dents soil, but it cracks under significant pressure.
Stiff: Finger pressure dents soil.
Firm: Soil can be molded using strong finger pressure.
Soft: Easily molded by finger.
Very soft: Soil flows between fingers when fist is closed.

Dilatancy:
Place a small amount of the soil in your palm and shake horizontally. Then strike it with the other hand.
If the surface is slurry and water appears, the soil probably has a large amount of silt.

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Identification of Soil

1. Visual Examination - Observe with naked eye

○ Color
○ Gradation
○ Angularity

2. Feel Test - Observe be small amount of soil, add a few drops of water, rut it between our fingers
○ Sand - If large particle
○ Silt - If small particles
○ Clay - if small particle and soapy

3. Rolling Test - sample soil, add few drops of water and make ball. Convert into a thread
○ Sandy Soil - Immediately crumbles
○ Silty Soil - cracks appear
○ Clayey Soil - Converted to thread of 3mm

4. Dry Strength Test

Take soil, add few drops of water, make cube out of it. Oven or sun at 100 degrees Celsius
When water removed, try to pressure is require to break it
○ Sandy Soil - break easily
○ Silty Soil - some pressure is required to break it
○ Clay - Cannot break easily

5. Dispersion Test
○ Sandy Soil - particle will settle down in very short time
○ Silty Soil -take some time to settle down
○ Clayey Soil - take a lot of time to settle down

Sandy Clay Loan

0-10% Clay 50-100% Clay 10-30% Clay
0-10% Silt 0-45% Silt 30-50% Silt
80-100% Sand 0-45% Sand 25-50% Sand

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