Latosols, also known as tropical red earth, are soils found under

tropical rainforest Tropical rainforests are dense and warm rainforests with high rainfall typically found between 10° north and south of the Equator. They are a subset of the tropical forest biome that occurs roughly within the 28° latitudes (in the torrid zo ...

s which have a relatively high content of

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

and

aluminium oxide Aluminium oxide (or aluminium(III) oxide) is a chemical compound of aluminium and oxygen with the chemical formula . It is the most commonly occurring of several Aluminium oxide (compounds), aluminium oxides, and specifically identified as alum ...

s. They are typically classified as oxisols (

USDA soil taxonomy USDA soil taxonomy (ST) developed by the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Cooperative Soil Survey provides an elaborate Soil classification, classification of soil types according to several parameters (most commonly their p ...

) or ferralsols (

World Reference Base for Soil Resources The World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) is an international soil classification system for naming soils and creating legends for soil maps. The currently valid version is the fourth edition 2022. It is edited by a working group of the I ...

). Latosols are tropical soils, but not all soils in the tropics are latosolic. Latosols are red or yellowish-red in colour throughout and they do not have distinct horizons like a

podsol Podzols, also known as podosols, spodosols, or espodossolos, are the typical soils of coniferous or Taiga, boreal forests and also the typical soils of eucalypt forests and heathlands in southern Australia. In Western Europe, podzols develop on he ...

. The red colour comes from the

iron oxide An iron oxide is a chemical compound composed of iron and oxygen. Several iron oxides are recognized. Often they are non-stoichiometric. Ferric oxyhydroxides are a related class of compounds, perhaps the best known of which is rust. Iron ...

s in the soil. They are deep soils, often extending deep whereas podsols are deep. The soil generally contains a thin but very fertile layer of

humus In classical soil science, humus is the dark organic matter in soil that is formed by the decomposition of plant and animal matter. It is a kind of soil organic matter. It is rich in nutrients and retains moisture in the soil. Humus is the Lati ...

dropped from plants and animals in the forest above, followed by an infertile second layer due to rapid leaching caused by high rainfall. The third level, weathered

bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material ( regolith) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface material. An exposed portion of bed ...

, is common to almost all soil types. The latosol is completely reliant on the rainforest to maintain fertility, as all nutrients leach away quickly when the forest is felled and the layer of humus is no longer being replaced.

References

* * {{Soil type Pedology Types of soil Soil science

See also

References