Pedology

Study of soils in their natural environment

Pedology (from Greek: πέδον, pedon, "soil"; and λόγος, logos, "study") is a discipline within soil science which focuses on understanding and characterizing soil formation, evolution, and the theoretical frameworks for modeling soil bodies, often in the context of the natural environment. Pedology is often seen as one of two main branches of soil inquiry, the other being edaphology which is traditionally more agronomically oriented and focuses on how soil properties influence plant communities (natural or cultivated). In studying the fundamental phenomenology of soils, e.g., soil formation (aka pedogenesis), pedologists pay particular attention to observing soil morphology, the geographic distributions of soils, and the placement of soil bodies within larger temporal and spatial contexts.

From Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA. More on occurri.