A grey or light-coloured 'E' horizon is the result of severe leaching, or eluviation, which washes out everything but quartz grains. Eluviation is the removal of soil, clay, silt or fine organic ...

Higher life forms are almost entirely absent, but the hyper-arid soil ... of deeper horizons? Dirk Wagner and colleagues sought to extend understanding of the desert's biota to the deep subsurface ...