The Changing Model of Soil.

Three ongoing changes in the genetic model of soil have far-reaching consequences for the future of soil science and environmental managment: (i) that the lower boundary of soil is much deeper than the solum historically confined to O to B horizons, (ii) that soil is being transformed globally from a natural to human-natural body, and (iii) that most soils are a kind of polygenetic paleosol, archival products of soil-forming processes that have ranged widely over the life of most soils.  Together and each in their own way, these three changes in the model of soil impact human–soil relations and give structure to the science of anthropedology. In other words, human forcings represent a global wave of soil polygenesis altering fluxes of matter and energy and transforming the thermodynamics of soils as potentially very deep systems.  Anthro-pedogenesis needs much better quantification to evaluate the future of soil and soil interactions with the wider environment.