Soils lose moisture quickly during droughts because the molecular interactions that help retain water are not fully understood. Understanding this mechanism can help engineer soils to better preserve ...

Scientists know iron oxide minerals store large amounts of carbon in soils, but lack a detailed, quantitative understanding of the specific chemical mechanisms that allow them to bind such a wide ...

Geochemist Isaac Larsen at UMass Amherst has received a five-year, $500,000 early career development grant from NSF to address basic research questions about soil production, soil erosion, ...

What is the first color that comes to mind when you envision soil? Is it brown, black, yellow, or red? How about white, gray, green, or blue? Experts now explain that all of these answers are correct ...

In certain trees, soils can form along branches and can support varied plant and animal life. However, what conditions these ‘canopy soils’ form in, and what kind of biodiversity they support, has ...

Our soils are in trouble. Over the past century, we’ve abused them with plowing, tilling and too much fertilizer. What many think of as “just dirt” is actually an incredibly complex mixture of ...