Kerala Soil Museum

Kerala Soil Museum is a museum showcasing the diversity of soil and the richness of the mineral resources in Kerala State in India. The museum has been set up by the Department of Soil Survey and Conservation of Government of Kerala and is located in the premises of Central Soil Analytical Laboratory at Parottukonam, in Thiruvananthapuram District in Kerala. The Museum was inaugurated by Oommen Chandy, Chief Minister of Kerala on 1 January 2014. It is claimed that it is "the first Soil Museum in India having international standards" and also that it is "the largest such museum in the world".

Prominent exhibits

The most important exhibits in the Museum are a set of soil profiles, also called a soil monoliths, featuring the different soils in the various Districts of Kerala. A soil profile represents the soil typical of a region, with all the basic features preserved intact. The Museum has such profiles of all the 82 soil series found in Kerala. Each monolith, measuring 1.5-metre in height, was dug out without disturbing the elements, was processed up to a month, and then brought to the Museum for display. The project team was trained by experts from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, which hosts the World Soil Museum.

Other exhibits include:

• Samples of the eight general types of soil found in Kerala, namely, alluvial, coastal alluvial, kari, red loam, black cotton, forest, laterite and hill.
• A collection of rocks and minerals.
• Various soil constituents like clay, silt, sand, stone and gravel.
• A geological and mineral map of Kerala.
• Display boards explaining the principles of soil formation and the relevance of soil to climate change and food security.
• A Soil Information Centre featuring models of the various elements of a watershed and of various water conservation measures.

KFRI Soil Museum

Kerala Forest Research Institute (KFRI) in Peechi, Thrissur District, Kerala, is home to a smaller soil museum with a collection of 20 soil monoliths. The monoliths are of the different types of soil found in the various forest ecosystems in the Western Ghats region of Kerala. These monoliths include profiles from the evergreen forests in the Vazhachal region, shola forests in Munnar area, grasslands of Eravikulam National Park, dry deciduous forests of Chinnar, and the degraded forests of the Pattikkad, Thrissur, range.

See also

World Soil Museum