TYPES OF SOIL IN MALAYSIA Soil is a natural resource that is vital for living things. Soil is defined as an incoherent mineral and organic material that works as a natural element for the survival of living things. Retallack et al. (1984) proposed that soil is a “material at the surface of a planet or similar body, altered in place by physical chemical or biological agencies, or by a combination of them” (p. 7). Malaysia’s average temperature ranges from 20 degree Celsius to 30 degree Celsius with
positions. Primary soil-forming materials are the omnipresent Triassic trappean rocks. After Sokolov et al. (2002) soils in this province mainly develop from residuum of bedrocks or from their loose derivatives of colluvial and solifluctional origin. In general mineral and chemical composition of the “sediment mantles” resemble underlying bedrock (Sokolov et al., 2002). Due to the low thermal regimes chemical weathering is hampered, while physical, cryopedogenic processeses dominate soil genesis. Cryopedogenic
past (Zahran and Willis, 2009). The FAO soil map of the world shows that soils of the Eastern Desert of Egypt belong mostly to the Lithosols or soils of rocky origin (Beumont et al. 1988). Water resources are poor and are restricted to torrent storms which occur randomly in place and time. Rainfall percolates through the gravel and sand deposits of stream (wadi) beds forming local underground reservoirs (Abu Al-Izz 1971). Water shortage, topography and poor soil conditions are the main limitations to
Vertisols are a group of heavy-textured soils which are found in the tropics, subtropics and warm temperate zones. They could be known Dark Clays and many different names mostly related to their dark color; Sixty percent of the Vertisols are in the tropics, 30 % in the subtropics and 10 % in colder regions. The major areas of Vertisols are found in Australia, India, Sudan, Chad, US, China, and Ethiopia. Vertisols are an important soil in agriculture, although they cover only a small area of the land