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'There is nothing in the whole of nature which is more important than or deserves as much attention as the soil. Truly, it is the soil which makes the world a friendly environment for mankind. It is the soil which nourishes and provides for the whole of nature; the whole of creation depends on the soil which is the ultimate foundation of our existence'.
Friedrich Albert Fallou, 1862
Thank you very much for visiting my web site. I am a professor of soil science at the University of Granada (Spain). If you want to know more about my career path in research and teaching, please go ahead.
When I was a degree student, I learned to see the soils as independent natural bodies of the outer layer of the Earth’s crust. This is also the main focus of the professional activity that I perform every day. I am interested in soil description (inventory of soil properties and behaviour); soil genesis (origin and development of soils); systematics (classification of soils according to pedogenetic, regional and functional aspects); soil ecology (soil in the environment of living plants, animals and humans); soil fertility (soil’s capacity to produce food and fiber); and soil functions related to environmental quality and human health (biogeochemical cycling, partitioning of water, storage and release, buffering and energy partitioning).
I am especially intrigued by the beauty of soil. There is a rainbow of color hues under our feet and I have spent a lot time studying them in relation to the composition, size and arrangement of soil particles. I have had to learn much more about soil chemistry and mineralogy as well as soil physics, in particular water potential and structure, all which influences the color of soil. Although I am essentially a pedologist, I managed to understand the rudiment for the applied colorimetry.
As far as I am concerned, the words of Fallou are as true today as they were little over one hundred and fifty years ago. That is perhaps the reason why today more and more researchers, who do not consider themselves soil scientists, use the soil materials as their study object. There is nothing new. Several centuries BC many prominent Greek scholars from a wide range of literary and scientific styles such as Aristotle, Plato, Pausanias or Hippocrates were already interested in SOIL.