| | Soil Formation, Alaska Science Forum |
 | | Studies of Alaskan glacial moraines show that recognizable traces of soil formation can be detected as little as fifteen years after moraine deposition, that a surface loam layer can develop there in about 250 years, and that 2,000 years will create a full soil profile. |
 | | The most important of them are the invertebrates living in the soil; they are insects, roundworms, millipedes, centipedes and earthworms who help decompose plant material by feeding upon it and loosening the soil by burrowing through it, thereby helping to aerate it and make paths for water and plant roots. |
 | | Plant photosynthesis injects hydrogen into the developing soil where the hydrogen helps water percolating through to move components of the soil minerals vertically. |
| www.gi.alaska.edu /ScienceForum/ASF5/531.html (1185 words) |