The summit soils are thin — sometimes extremely thin — highly acidic, and extraordinarily poor in the nutrients that most plants require.

The organic matter component is minimal because the rate of decomposition in the cool, acidic, nutrient-poor conditions is very slow; material that accumulates on the surface breaks down slowly and provides little benefit to the plants trying to grow in it.

The underlying rock — the quartzite sandstone — contributes little to soil fertility.

Quartz weathers into silicon dioxide, which provides the physical structure of soil but essentially no plant-available nutrients.

The trace minerals that come from quartz weathering are so sparse that they cannot support the kind of plant community that normal tropical soils would host.