[citation needed] Making parent material an important part of the soil forming process.
[citation needed] It has undergone greater transformation and experienced a decrease in volume from its origins as saprolite and bedrock.
In temperate climate its presence is in relatively lower amounts occurring as a “thin blanket of loose material above the bedrock.
[3] In contrast, "a decrease in the amount of rock fragments as depth increases, especially over saprolite, indicates that the soil materials probably has been transported down slope".
Resistant materials such as chert, silicified fossils, or beds of sandstone remain and may concentrate on the surface as float.