The soil is currently facing serious pollution, erosion, and degradation in the background of
global change, which is threatening the ecosystem stability and food security of China. Quantifying soil formation
and evolution (time and rate, etc.) is a critical scientific issue in Earth sciences. Meteoric radioactive isotope 10Be
(hereinafter referred to as meteoric 10Be) serves as a natural tracer, with its inventory in soil controlled by soil age,
surface erosion, and chemical weathering processes. Therefore, meteoric 10Be is an effective tool for
quantitatively tracing the soil formation and evolution over ten million years and has a broad application prospect.
Firstly, this article summarizes and reviews the latest progress on the production, delivery, and deposition of
meteoric 10Be in the Earth's atmosphere, as well as its accumulation and migration in the soil profile. The
reasonable estimation of the long-term deposition rate of meteoric 10Be and its migration in the weathering zones
are important challenges that urgently need to be resolved in this field. Secondly, this article introduces the main
methods used by meteoric 10Be to estimate soil formation (residence) age, and formation rate, indicating soil
erosion and transportation on hill slopes. The key premise for applying meteoric 10Be technology is based on an
understanding of geological and environmental processes in the study area and making a rational assessment of
the calculation model. With the rapid development of accelerator mass spectrometry analysis capabilities in China
will effectively promote the widespread application of meteoric 10Be technology in quantitative research on soil
evolution, helping to solve problems such as predicting environmental ecosystem evolution and soil conservation
in arable land.