Biswajit Banerjee, the divisional forest officer, admits that the rocky soil is of little use for planting trees.

ECONOMIST: Poverty in India

As our ship drew closer to the islands, we could see lunar landmasses with no vegetation and rocky brown soil.

BBC: A wild world off California's coast

Where the Earth has soil, other rocky bodies in the solar system have regolith.

ECONOMIST: Spaceflight

The soil was poor and rocky, and in winter everything froze.

NEWYORKER: Town of Cats