Types of Soil

Just like plants and animals, soils are classified into different orders and suborders. There are 12 main orders of soil:

-Alfisols

-Andisols

-Aridisols

-Entisols

-Gelisols

-Histosols

-Inceptisols

-Mollisols

-Oxisols

-Spodosols

-Ultisols

-Vertisols

The image to the right is a soil texture triangle. The soil texture triangle shows the 12 major soil texture classes and what percent of each type of soil makes them up.

http://http://soils.usda.gov/technical/soil_orders/