where does the soil come from covering buildings found hundreds of feet below the suface of the ground.?

Question

Even in Britain remains of past life buildings are found deep down, so how do these get covered with so much soil. Where does the top soil come from?

Answer 1

this can depend on the environment. For example, in cities new buildings are often built on top of the foundations of the previous ones, thus resulting in the oldest buildings being located deepest (it is only in relatively recent history we started digging down to lay stronger foundations for our buildings, which is why we are now finding more and more ruins in the cities). In the countryside it may be the result of erosion of the landscape and the growth and decomposition of organic life, as well as other geologic events such as erosion (and even catastrophic events when considering places like pompeii)

It is organic life and its death which, for the most part, is responsible for the formation of topsoil.

Answer 2

I suggest an experiment that u could do in your garden (or a friends etc if you don't have a garden).
Dig out a small patch say about a sqare yard, and plant some seeds (some annual and some perennial about 60pence a packet out of poundstretchers) and a bit of grass seed. Put in a tin can, a couple of pebbles, newspaper and a brick. Leave it for a year and see how it turns out.
If this is too much hassle, then observe a local building site where they are knocking down stuff to build new houses. The site is cleared and is all raw earth and rubble. A couple of months later they start building, but it is not done in a week. The area they have yet to build will suddenly look like a pasture field by spring and you would never know there had been anything manmade - nature reclaims very quickly.

Answer 3

Worms!

And micro-organisms and other mini-beasts continually turning over the soil. Nature is fantastic isn't it?

The raw material comes from weathering of rocks at the surface and the organic material from dead plants and animals, either falling directly or being blown by the wind, or deposited by floods and rain; but the reason the topsoil is at the surface, and the stones and buildings are burried is due to Earthworm castings.

Ploughing and tilling at the surface also encourages it. And in towns and cities humans have piled rubbish and new buildings on top of the old.

Answer 4

There are sites all over the world where ancient civilizations
were covered by volcanic eruptions, ongoing vegetation growth
and other such factors.
Pompeii is perhaps the most famous but the Near-East, the Mediterranean Rim countries and other national areas including sites on the North American continent are famous for such
'burried civilizations.'

Answer 5

Whether is the answer rain and wind moves dirt around off hills and deposit it in other areas. If you think how dirty a car can get after it rains and imagine that after 100 years plus it will soon look fairly messy, also leaves from trees and other plants die and tern in to compost which again after a few hundred years will cover up old sites.

Other weather that can cause an instant covering is floods and avalanches.

hope this helps from Steve.