In soil science, parent material is the underlying geological material (generally bedrock or a superficial or drift deposit) in which soil horizons form. Soils typically inherit a great deal of structure and minerals from their parent material, and, as such, are often classified based upon their contents of consolidated or unconsolidated mineral material that has undergone some degree of physical or chemical weathering and the mode by which the materials were most recently transported.
Read more about Parent Material: Consolidated, Unconsolidated, Climate and Weathering
Famous quotes containing the words parent and/or material:
“It’s funny how you never meet a parent who rushes his child. That’s what other parents do. All we are doing is reacting to our child’s “natural” ability.”
—Fred G. Gosman (20th century)
“In the wildest nature, there is not only the material of the most cultivated life, and a sort of anticipation of the last result, but a greater refinement already than is ever attained by man.... Nature is prepared to welcome into her scenery the finest work of human art, for she is herself an art so cunning that the artist never appears in his work.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)