Toward a Comprehensive Soil Classification System

The rapid growth of specialized disciplines, as seen in the natural sciences over the last several decades, has fostered new and diverse vernaculars. As new information is gained from closer study of natural realms, additional terms are needed to describe an increasing array of recorded phenomena. Advances in the geological sciences have, for example, contributed to a burgeoning vocabulary. The 1980 edition of the Glossary of Geology (American Geological Institute) contains 36,000 terms, about 3,000 more than the 1972 edition. These additions reflect changes in the geosciences over the last decade, especially advances in fields dealing with plate tectonics, remote sensing, igneous petrology, paleomagnetism, and biostratigraphy. Many recently coined terms are appropriate and useful. Others will not stand the test of time and will fade away. Soil scientists as a collective body are perhaps also falling unwittingly into a morass of scientific jargon. This terminological bottleneck is particularly evident in the field of soil classification where there exists a multiplicity of terms for describing soil units. This situation presents an imposing problem for geographers in particular, but geologists, ecologists, and environmental scientists also have cause for concern.