Currently, leaching primarily describes the process of water carrying soluble substances or small particles through soil or rock. Leaching can transport chemical compounds like dissolved substances or larger materials such as decomposing plant materials, fine rock fragments, and microbes throughout the Critical Zone.

Examples of mechanical weathering include frost and salt wedging, unloading and exfoliation, water and wind abrasion, impacts and collisions, and biological actions. All of these processes break rocks into smaller pieces without changing the physical composition of the rock.

Weathering is the wearing away of the surface of rock, soil, and minerals into smaller pieces. Example of weathering: Wind and water cause small pieces of rock to break off at the side of a mountain. Weathering can occur due to chemical and mechanical processes.

Leaching is the loss or extraction of certain materials from a carrier into a liquid (usually, but not always a solvent). and may refer to: Leaching (agriculture), the loss of water-soluble plant nutrients from the soil; or applying a small amount of excess irrigation to avoid soil salinity.

Leaching removes vital nutrients and micronutrients, such as water-soluble boron, from the soil, causing potential deficiencies in crops. For example, when crops suffer from boron deficiency, they exhibit visual symptoms including: Misshapen, thick, brittle, small leaves. Short stems and a “shrunken” appearance.

Leaching is the process of a solute becoming detached or extracted from its carrier substance by way of a solvent. Leaching can occur naturally seen from plant substances (inorganic and organic), solute leaching in soil, and in the decomposition of organic materials.

In agriculture, leaching is the loss of water-soluble plant nutrients from the soil, due to rain and irrigation. Soil structure, crop planting, type and application rates of fertilizers, and other factors are taken into account to avoid excessive nutrient loss. Example:- Red and yellow soil is formed due to leaching.

Leaching is a process widely used in extractive metallurgy where ore is treated with chemicals to convert the valuable metals within into soluble salts while the impurity remains insoluble. These can then be washed out and processed to give the pure metal; the materials left over are commonly known as tailings.

For example, leaching is widely used in the biological and food processing industries for the separation of sugar from sugar beets with hot water, or for the extraction of oil from peanuts, soybeans and sunflower seeds. Gold, for instance, is leached from its ore using an aqueous cyanide solution.

Leaching of nutrients is of major environmental concern as high concentration of some ions in the drinking water is harmful to human health. Phosphorus (P) in soils is important because adequate availability of this nutrient is required for plant growth and crop production.

Leaching is a process in which water-soluble substances are washed out from the soil. It also causes loss of soil nutrients because as the water moves down the soil, it takes away some nutrients that are essential to the plant growth. Leaching may occur due to many reasons like excessive rain or irrigation.