Humic Acid comes entirely from vegetation, and the earliest known forms were created the Carboniferous Period millions of years ago, when the earth's mineral-richsoils produced a profusion of lush green forests.

As this lush growth of vegetation died, it accumulated at the surface, and later was buried by rock and mudflows and deposits of sand and silt. The weight of these deposits compacted and compressed out all of the moisture. Over the ages, the vegetation underwent compaction and heating. It slowly carbonized and became coal.

Compaction squeezed out the organic acids and esters present in the vegetation and formed a pool on top of the lignite coal bed. This pool dried, aged and eventually formed Leonardite shale. What remains today is a deposit of prehistoric plant derivatives.

During this simple process of decomposition, amino acids, carbohydrates and phenols turned into very complex products called Humic Acids. Because of its vegetative origin, this material is very beneficial to plants today. In natural conditions, humus and its humic acids are not soluble. Otherwise soils could be deprived of humus and eventually washed out to sea.

Humates are the salts of humic acids, which form complexes with phosphorus and micro-nutrition elements which are easily assimilated by plants, and sharply increase efficiency of mineral-based fertilizers.

Humate materials from prehistoric deposits are widely distributed as various organic carbon-containing compounds, found in organic-laden soils, fresh water, and oceans, and make up approximately 75 percent of the organic matter that exists in most mineral soils. Humates play a direct role in determining the production potential of a soil.