Mineralogy and Strength Attributes of Soils

Soil compaction is a major threat to sustainable agriculture and the environment. One main cause of soil compaction that had been identified, is applying pressure more than the soils can support to them. Thus, an appreciable knowledge of soils’ load bearing capacity would help minimize compaction. In this book, we presented some of our results on the effect of soil mineralogy and history on their load support capacity. We used five Latosols (Oxisols) variants from Brasil. Our result identified the significant influence of the mineralogy of soil on its physical behavior including the load support. We also laid a foundation for large scale prediction of load support capacity of soil.