It usually takes thousands of years for soil to form from bedrock. In some places, soil forms directly on top of bedrock. In other places, soil forms on a thick layer of loose rock and mineral material. This material, called sediment, has been carried from distant areas by rivers or glaciers.

Bedrock, a deposit of solid rock that is typically buried beneath soil and other broken or unconsolidated material (regolith). Bedrock is made up of igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic rock, and it often serves as the parent material (the source of rock and mineral fragments) for regolith and soil.

topsoil

tundra soil

The soil in the Arctic is largely permafrost or soil that remains frozen year-round, leaving only a thin surface layer of thawed soil in summer for plant roots to grow in. Tundra soil is also scarce in many of the nutrients that plants need to grow.

Answer Expert Verified. The type of soil most likely to be found in the Arctic is the Tundra Soil. The Tundra, is a landscape, very cold, it creates unique patterns in the ground. During summer, water can accumulate underground, then freeze, which drives the soil upward into a small hill call a Pingo.

Ultisols (from Latin ultimus, “last”) are strongly leached, acid forest soils with relatively low native fertility. They are found primarily in humid temperate and tropical areas of the world, typically on older, stable landscapes.

Andisols (from Japanese ando, “black soil”) are soils that have formed in volcanic ash or other volcanic ejecta. They differ from those of other orders in that they typically are dominated by glass and short-range-order colloidal weathering products such as allophane, imogolite and ferrihydrite.

Gelisols are found chiefly in Siberia, Alaska, and Canada. Smaller areas are found in the Andes (mainly near the intersection between Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina), Tibet, northern Scandinavia, and the ice-free parts of Greenland and Antarctica.

Because soil organic matter accumulates in the upper layer, most Gelisols are black or dark brown in soil color, followed by a shallow mineral layer.

Gelisols (from Latin gelare, “to freeze”) are soils of very cold climates that contain permafrost within two meters of the surface. Low soil temperatures cause soil-forming processes such as decomposition of organic materials to proceed very slowly. …

Alluvial soils

Chemically, the black soils are rich in lime, iron, magnesia and alumina. They also contain potash. But they lack in phosphorous, nitrogen and organic matter.

Black soils constitute the food basket for many countries and for the world in general and are often recognized as inherently productive and fertile soils. They are extensively and intensively farmed, and increasingly dedicated to cereal production, pasture, range and forage systems.

It can be nearly pure peat. One product I saw listed as ingredients: peat, humus, limestone, dolomite. Very few plants will survive for long in black earth if it is just limed peat moss. Other “black earth” products do contain topsoil and may be labeled “black earth soil” or “black earth topsoil”.