Soil to new conditions. Whether these are slow or rapid changes depends on climate, topography and biological activity. The physical properties of soils, in order of decreasing importance for ecosystem services such as crop production, are texture, structure, bulk density, porosity, consistency, temperature, colour and resistivity. Soil texture is determined by the relative proportion of the three kinds of soil mineral particles, called soil separates: sand, silt, and clay. At the next larger scale, soil structures called peds or more commonly "soil aggregates" are created from the soil separates when iron oxides, carbonates, clay, silica and humus, coat particles and cause
Sand filter solid-liquid separation such as settling tanks, self-cleaning screen filters, hydrocyclones and centrifuges. There are several kinds of depth filter, some employing fibrous material and others employing granular materials. Sand bed filters are an example of a granular loose media depth filter. They are usually used to separate small amounts (<10 parts per million or <10 g per cubic metre) of fine solids (<100 micrometres) from aqueous solutions. In addition, they are usually used to purify the fluid rather than capture the solids as a valuable material. Therefore they find most of their uses in liquid effluent (wastewater) treatment. Sand bed