Suffix[edit] -al. of or pertaining to; adjectival suffix appended to various words, often nouns, to make an adjective form. Often added to words of Latin origin, but used with other words also.
Loam is a classification given to soil that contains relatively balanced amounts of sand, silt and clay. Loam soils typically contain less than 52 percent sand, 28 to 50 percent silt, and between 7 and 20 percent clay. Classification as a loam soil has nothing to do with the organic material it contains or where it is found. A mixture that contains almost equal amounts of silt, sand and clay is referred to simply as loam. However, if the soil has slightly more of one of these elements in relation to the others, then the classification is modified to sandy loam, clay loam, silt loam, sandy clay loam, or silty clay loam.
Soil is a mixture A mixture is a combination of elements, whereas a pure substance is just one element. For instance, Cl (chlorine) is a pure substance. Mix it with Na (sodium) and you get table salt: NaCl, which is a mixture.