What we can learn from studying soil

You've probably used the phrase "old as dirt" before, but researchers have found out that some rare soils are indeed old -- up to four million years old. But over time, some soils have become more rare, and even extinct.

Ron Amundson, a soil expert at the University of California, Berkeley, says it's important to study how soils have changed over the years, and what that might mean for the environment in the future.

Amundson spoke this week at the University of Minnesota's College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences about rare and endangered soils.

Since so much of the earth's surface is devoted to urban areas or agriculture, the soil has been disturbed. Amundson says what's needed is a concerted effort to set aside land, particularly in the Great Plains, to be studied.

Amundson grew up on a farm in South Dakota, and says he's been interested in soil since he was a young boy, playing in the dirt.

MPR's Tom Crann talked to Amundson about what we can learn from studying soil.

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