AROUND THE WORLD

Where in the World are you?

Did you know that soils and world biomes are closely linked? Soils around the world vary in color, texture, structure, and chemical, physical, and biological composition. Like other biological creatures, soil can be classifed (grouped with similar members).

Soils are split into major orders, with the frozen soils (Gelisols) in a different group than the desert soils (Aridisols).

There are 10 major biomes (Figure 1), and 12 major soil orders (Figure 2) on earth. The temperate grasslands (yellow in Figure 1) match up quite well with the Mollisols, or prairie soils (Green in Figure 2). There are links below where you can find out more about your biome, and what type of soil that it has.