Granular material physics of granular matter and whose book "The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes" remains an important reference to this day. According to material scientist Patrick Richard, "Granular materials are ubiquitous in nature and are the second-most manipulated material in industry (the first one is water)". In some sense, granular materials do not constitute a single phase of matter but have characteristics reminiscent of solids, liquids, or gases depending on the average energy per grain. However, in each of these states granular materials also exhibit properties which are unique. Granular materials also exhibit a wide range of pattern forming
Polish Soil Classification described diagnostic horizons, diagnostic materials and diagnostic properties. Soil forming processes are not a part of classification but the relationship between the processes and their morphological effects was taken into account during creating differentiating criteria of diagnostic horizons, materials and properties. The classification derives much of international systems: USDA soil taxonomy (1999) and World Reference Base for Soil Resources - WRB (2006). Polish soil science intellectual tradition has always maintained a balance between genetical-geographic approach (typical for the Russian scientific school) and substantional-geological-petrographic approach (characteristic for Western Europe). Multilateral look at the soil manifested, in all editions of classification, that