Ecological Functions of Soils in the Biosphere and in Human Life

摘要

In 1883, 130 years ago, an important event in the history of Russian natural science happened: V.V. Dokuchaev justified the scientific concept of soils as special natural bodies formed on the surface of the earth’s dry land as a result of the interaction of vegetation and the animal world with the upper layers of mountain rocks in different climatic and landscape conditions. He described it in his monograph Russian Chernozem. St. Petersburg University awarded a doctoral degree in geognosy and mineralogy to Dokuchaev for this work, the Russian Academy of Sciences gave him the Metropolitan Macarius Grand Prize, and the Imperial Free Economic Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture and House Building in Russia presented him with a Testimonial Address. This date became the birthday of the natural–historical science of soils, which was called “Dokuchaev’s genetic pedology.”