Soil mineralogy is an important tool to study and understand soil genesis and soil physical and chemical behavior. Furthermore, soil mineralogy is used as diagnostic criterion to define soil classes in the Brazilian System of Soil Classification and provides information on the potential soil mineral reserve of plant nutrients. In this context, this study presents the mineralogical characterization of gravel, fine and coarse sand fractions (under a binocular lens and petrographic microscope), and of the silt and clay fractions (by X ray diffraction) of all soil horizons, and the petrographic study of the parent rock, aiming to understand the mineralogical evolution of a typical Ultisol of the Coastal Humid Zone of Pernambuco State. The coarse fractions of the studied Ultisol are formed, essentially, by angular shaped quartz (> 95 %), demonstrating the absence of transported materials during soil formation. Rock fragments (formed by quartz, feldspars and opaque minerals), feldspars and biotite, with more evident weathering in the surface horizons, were also observed and are mineralogically compatible with the parent rock. The silt fraction is composed by micas, feldspars, quartz and kaolinite. Chlorite is only observed in the deeper horizons. The clay fraction has the same mineralogy as observed for the silt fraction, and still there are interstratified minerals in the bottom horizons. The parent rock is biotite-gneiss of medium granulometry, formed by feldspars (plagioclase, perthite and microcline), quartz and biotite, with epidotes, zircon and opaque minerals as accessory minerals. The results showed that the studied Ultisol is autochthonous and highly weathered, due to the humid tropical climatic conditions, and has a very low potential mineral reserve of plant nutrients.
soil classification; soil genesis; soil mineralogy; weathering
