The correct answer is landslide.

 Key Points

• Factors affecting soil formation:
  •  
  • The major factors affecting soil formation are parent material, climate, vegetation, other life forms, and time.
• Soil:
  • This is the uppermost layer of the Earth's crust, formed by the continuous weathering of mountains over thousands of years.
  • It consists of four basic components: minerals, organic matter, air, and water.
  • The three main components responsible for its composition are sand, silt, and clay.
  • Based on these three components, the mineral composition of soil varies.
  • Leaves and organic components decompose to form the upper organic layer, known as humus.
    • The amount of humus in the soil plays a very important role in its fertility.

 Additional Information

• India is an agrarian country, and soil is its primary resource.
  • It plays a significant role in India's economy as our industries are primarily agriculture-based.
• Approximately 65 to 70% of the country's total population depends on agriculture.
• The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) established an all-India soil survey committee in 1953, which classified Indian soil into eight major groups.
  • Alluvial soil, black cotton soil, red soil, laterite soil, hilly or forest soil, dry or desert soil, saline and alkaline soil, peat and marshy soil are categories of Indian soil.
• Various criteria have been applied to classify Indian soil: geology, parent material, fertility, chemical composition, and physical structure.
• Geologically, Indian soil can be broadly divided into two main types:
  • Soil of Peninsular India:
    • The soil of Peninsular India is formed from the weathering of rocks in situ, that is, directly from the underlying rocks.
  • Soil of Extra Peninsular India:
    • The soil of the extra peninsula is formed due to the deposition work of rivers and wind.
• Pedology is an integrated approach to studying soil as a collection of natural bodies.