Soil Particles

Mar 19, 2025 • 8:37 PM UTC

Rock Hill, SC, USA

140x Magnification

Non-Living

Holly Stuart (Foldscope Team)

Education Specialist at Foldscope Instruments

66posts

959comments

7locations

Soil is made of multiple layers (also called horizons). Organic material is found in the uppermost layers and the horizons get progressively rockier the farther down you go. I used a soil corer to see what the soil profile of one of my garden beds looked like. You can see in the picture that the color went from a rich dark brown to a reddish orange at the bottom. I decided to look at the particles in each layer under my Foldscope 2.0 to better understand what was in my soil.

The top layer contained large particles that appeared to be fuzzy around the edges. There were also crystalline particles (probably sand) that were clear and yellow. This image was taken with a Foldscope 2.0 using a 140X magnification lens plus 5X digital zoom.

The middle layer looked similar to the top layer, but with some tiny clay particles mixed in. These images were taken with a Foldscope 2.0 using a 140X magnification lens plus 5X digital zoom.

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The clay layer was composed of tiny reddish clay particles. Under the reflective lighting the particles look like tiny rocks. The first image was taken with a Foldscope 2.0 using a 50X magnification lens with reflective lighting. The second image was taken with a Foldscope 2.0 using a 140X magnification lens plus 5X zoom. There are a few larger particles mixed in, but the tiny clay particles fill in most of the space between the larger sandy particles.

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I highly recommend exploring your soil profile - what kind of layers do you have? And are the the same everywhere? I love how one exploration can lead to so many more lines of inquiry!