1. Historical development of key concepts in pedology 2. Is pedology dead and buried? 3. Development of soil morphological descriptors to improve field estimation of hydraulic conductivity 4. Advancing the frontiers of soil science towards a geoscience 5. Erosion, sedimentation and pedogenesis in a polygenetic oxisol sequence in Minas Gerais, Brazil 6. The role of soil-forming processes in the definition of taxa in Soil Taxonomy and the World Soil Reference Base 7. Pedogenesis and pre-Colombian land use of ‘‘Terra Preta Anthrosols’’ (‘‘Indian black earth’’) of Western Amazonia 8. Organic matter characteristics and distribution in Ferralsol profiles of a climosequence in southern Brazil Fertility capability soil classification: a tool to help assess soil quality in the tropics