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Landscapes and soils through time — Progress and challenges in palaeopedology and soil geography
Catena 112 (2014) 1–3
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Catena journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/catena
Preface
Landscapes and soils through time — Progress and challenges in palaeopedology and soil geography Keywords: Soil geography Palaeopedology Soil landscapes Palaeosols Soil archives
some critical comments and recommendations for future research. The papers of this special issue will be cited where appropriate to show how each contribution is embedded within the overall frame of this bilateral special issue “Landscapes and soils through time”. 1. Progress and challenges in palaeopedology
This special issue mainly comprises selected papers presented at the International Conference “Landscapes and Soils through Time“, held from 29 July to 1 August 2011 at Hohenheim University, Stuttgart, Germany. In addition, a number of papers related to the topic were included. The conference was a joint activity of the Commissions Soil Geography and Palaeopedology of the International Union of Soil Sciences. It aimed at bringing together palaeopedologists and soil geographers to get insight into each other's field of research and exchange experience based on different views on the same object: soils — including recent, polygenetic, relic and fossil soils within their corresponding landscapes. We felt that geographers and palaeopedologists might learn from each other by including the perspective of the respective other discipline into their own concepts. For example, palaeopedologists usually work at pedon and horizon scales, and often use microscopic techniques to identify pedogenic processes and their chronological sequence in soils. In contrast, soil geographers look at soils at the landscape rather than pedon scale. They rather investigate soil associations than single pedons. This concept might be worth to be considered more explicitly in palaeopedological research as well, since palaeopedologists generally tend to interpret observed differences between two palaeosols by different palaeoclimatic conditions; however, such differences might also be due to different position of the palaeosols in the palaeo-relief (Jankowski, 2012). On the other hand, soil geographers tend to interpret observed coincidence of recent environmental conditions and properties of surface soils as evidence for environment–soil relationships, often not considering that surface soils may be polygenetic, and some of their properties might be inherited from past environmental conditions (Lucke et al., this volume). For example, if we find a reddish Luvisol with well-developed clay coatings in the Bt horizon in a dry Mediterranean climate, it does not necessarily mean that clay illuviation corresponds to the present soil environment – soil processes relationships. Micromorphological analysis may reveal that influx of calcareous dust has re-calcified the soil and clay illuviation is ceased under present conditions. These examples show that exchange of ideas and concepts between these two neighbor disciplines might be fruitful for both sides. On the following pages we will spotlight some major research objects and approaches in palaeopedology and soil geography, including 0341-8162/$ – see front matter © 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2013.08.016
Palaeopedologists aim at deciphering imprints of past climates and environmental conditions on relic soils and palaeosols (Costantini et al., 2009). For this purpose, they use existing knowledge on recent soil environment – soil properties relationships to interpret palaeosol properties in terms of palaeoenvironmental conditions. Palaeopedologists also apply knowledge on rates of soil-forming processes obtained from soil chronosequences to estimate the duration of past periods of soil formation that indicate phases of geomorphological stability of the respective landscape (e. g. Zielhofer et al., 2009). Their research moreover includes surface soils that often experienced climatic and environmental shifts and hence are often polygenetic in nature (e. g. Brock and Buck, 2009; Morrás et al., 2009; Scarciglia et al., 2003; Srivastava and Parkash, 2002), a fact that is not yet very widely perceived in the soil scientific community. Methodological approaches used in palaeopedology comprise, beside widely used standard procedures, soil-chemical analyses (and various weathering indices derived from soil-chemical data), clay mineralogy, thin section analysis by use of petrographic microscope, and scanning electron microscopy. More special approaches include analysis of various biological palaeoenvironmental proxies, e. g. faunal remains such as teeth and bone fragments (Tovar et al., this volume), macro remains of plants and charcoal, phytoliths and pollen, where these are sufficiently preserved (Golyeva and Andrič, this volume). Also analysis of stable isotope composition (mainly δ13C and δ18O) of bulk soil organic matter (SOM) or selected compounds of SOM and pedogenic carbonates has been more and more commonly applied over about the last two decades and has become a valuable source of information on palaeo-climate and -vegetation (Alçiçek and Alçiçek, this volume; Kovda et al., this volume). In addition, in recent years certain comparatively stable plantderived soil-organic compounds, e. g. plant membrane lipids and alkanes, have been explored for their potential for palaeovegetation reconstruction and have been successfully applied in a number of cases (e. g. Zech et al., 2010). However, development of these biomarker approaches is still in progress, and there are still several difficulties to be tackled, e. g. shifts of the composition of biomarkers due to selective degradation of some components (Zech et al., 2013). Other challenges that occur in interpreting palaeosols include post-burial alteration of palaeosols such as changes in chemical palaeosol properties (Alexandrovskiy and Sedov, this volume), contamination of palaeosol organic matter (PSOM) by modern carbon
2
Preface
affecting radiocarbon dating and the isotopic signature of the PSOM (Gocke et al., this volume), recrystallization, and effects of diagenetic processes in deeply buried palaeosols (Srivastava and Sauer, this volume). These challenges need to be addressed openly, and the extent of palaeosol alteration needs to be assessed as far as possible in order to be able to consider it in the interpretation of palaeosol properties. Where palaeoclimatic information obtained from other records such as lake or peat bog sediment cores, marine cores, speleothems, is available, palaeopedologists try to combine the information gained from the different archives (Bronnikova et al., this volume). Palaeosol-sediment sequences are usually less complete and have lower chronological resolution than laminated archives like those mentioned above. Nevertheless, they represent archives of unique value because in addition to palaeoclimatic information they provide evidence on when and how land surfaces responded to climatic shifts and became geomorphologically unstable (Wagner et al., this volume). Hence, causal relationships between climatic shifts and earth system responses may be extracted most clearly from palaeosol-sediment sequences. However, the time axis of a palaeosol-sediment sequence is more complex than that of e. g. aquatic sediment layers that accumulate on top of each other, thus following a unidirectional upward pointing time axis. The time axis of a soil-sediment sequence points upwards only during phases of sedimentation, whereas during periods of erosion, some sections of the time axis are erased, and during soil development the time axis points downwards. Time axes of Chinese loess-palaeosol sequences may be even more complex because sedimentation proceeded (at lower but nevertheless considerable rates) also during periods of soil development. As a consequence, in the same section of a profile, the time axis of sedimentation points upwards, whereas the time axis of pedogenesis points downwards, whereby the starting point of the pedogenesis time axis moves upwards with proceeding sedimentation. Unfortunately, these facts are often ignored when curves of various soil/sediment properties obtained from equidistant samples of soil-sediment sequences are created. Scientists having obtained such curves from a thick and apparently complete soil-sediment sequence are often tempted to plot them beside other existing curves, e. g. marine oxygen isotope curves, for correlation purposes. The obvious shortcoming of this commonly observed approach demonstrates the importance of developing conceptual pedological models that are able to explain chemical, magnetic and other soil data, instead of simply reporting obtained numbers or wiggle-matching different types of curves that partly differ even in the direction of their time axes. Another aspect that has been raised only recently in palaeopedology is carbon sequestration in palaeosols, in both pedogenic carbonates and SOM (Zech et al., this volume). This issue has received limited attention so far, but it is clearly relevant and needs to be discussed more extensively in the next future. Major problems in estimating carbon budgets that are stored in buried soils so far include missing information on the spatial extent of palaeosols that are usually investigated in gravel quarries or road cuts, and the fact that bulk density and content of rock fragments is required for calculating carbon budgets (Throop et al., 2012). At present, especially bulk density is not measured in most palaeopedological studies, and existing pedotransfer functions for bulk density, based on texture and SOM content, have serious limitations. We thus suggest including measurement of bulk density as a standard analysis in palaeopedology. This additional standard parameter would make palaeopedological data sets directly suitable for use in soil carbon storage estimates, e. g. for contributing them to the International Soil Carbon Database. Using pedotransfer functions seems rather risky especially for non surface soils, if one considers the related difficulties reported in the literature (e. g. De Vos et al., 2005; Hollis et al., 2012) and the relevance and thus responsibility of a scientist who makes such carbon budget calculations.
2. Progress and challenges in soil geography Soil geographers have identified and established concepts of characteristic soil distribution patterns, catenas and soil sequences in different climatic regions of the world, under different types of vegetation and on various parent materials. Thus they also generated important basic information for palaeoclimatic and -environmental interpretation of soil features. Soil geographers moreover investigate biogeochemical cycles (Cornelis et al., this volume), relief–soil relationships and lateral processes in terms of transport of solid material, water and solutes. The effects of downslope solid material transport on soil distribution patterns are well-known, including Regosols or Leptosols in shoulder and convex slope positions, well-developed soils in flat parts of the slope and colluvial deposits on the toe slope. Other aspects of lateral processes are less widely perceived. Examples are the formation of Pleistocene periglacial slope deposits in former permafrost areas of the mid-latitude regions that have a major influence on the present soil distribution patterns and soil properties in low mountain ranges, e.g. in Central Europe and North America (e. g. Kleber et al., 2013). Another lateral process that has received few attention in the past is lateral solute transport on dense periglacial slope deposits or subsoil horizons, although this kind of transport may considerably influence the soil pattern. Several examples were reported from the Black Forest (SW Germany), where e. g. lateral podzolization was first described (Sommer et al., 2000, 2001). Another case of lateral podzolization in an environment of less pronounced topography has been studied in Poland (Jankowski, this volume). Iron mobilization in Planosols or Stagnosols on plateaus, lateral transport on impermeable layers, and re-precipitation of iron oxides/hydroxides in better aerated pedons downslope were observed in the Black Forest as well (Fiedler and Jahn, 2005). This process leads to strongly iron-enriched soils (German Ockererde = ochre earth), downslope adjoining to Stagnosols or Planosols. Soils resulting from such kind of lateral solute transport in landscapes, leading to absolutely element-depleted upslope pedons and absolutely element-enriched downslope pedons, cannot yet be appropriately classified in the German or WRB systems.
References Brock, A.L., Buck, B.J., 2009. Polygenetic development of the Mormon Mesa, NV petrocalcic horizons: geomorphic and paleoenvironmental interpretations. Catena 77 (1), 65–75. Costantini, E.A.C., Makeev, A., Sauer, D., 2009. Recent developments and new frontiers in paleopedology. Quat. Int. 209 (1–2), 1–5. De Vos, B., Meirvenne, Van, Quataert, M.P., Deckers, J., Muys, B., 2005. Predictive quality of pedotransfer functions for estimating bulk density of forest soils. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 69, 500–510. Fiedler, S., Jahn, R., 2005. Accumulation soils like "Ockererde" - forgotten soil units in soil-classification systems. J. Plant Nutr. Soil Sci. 168 (6), 741–748. Hollis, J.M., Hannam, J., Bellamy, P.H., 2012. Empirically-derived pedotransfer functions for predicting bulk density in European soils. Eur. J. Soil Sci. 63, 96–109. Jankowski, M., 2012. Lateglacial soil paleocatena in inland-dune area of the Toruń Basin, Northern Poland. Quat. Int. 265, 116–125. Kleber, A., Terhorst, B., Bullmann, H., Hülle, D., Leopold, M., Müller, S., Raab, T., Sauer, D., Scholten, T., Dietze, M., Felix-Henningsen, P., Heinrich, J., Spies, E.-D., Thiemeyer, H., 2013. Subdued mountains of central Europe. Dev. Sedimentol. 66, 9–93. Morrás, H., Moretti, L., Píccolo, G., Zech, W., 2009. Genesis of subtropical soils with stony horizons in NE Argentina: autochthony and polygenesis. Quat. Int. 196 (1–2), 137–159. Scarciglia, F., Terribile, F., Colombo, C., Cinque, A., 2003. Late Quaternary climatic changes in Northern Cilento (Southern Italy): an integrated geomorphological and paleopedological study. Quat. Int. 106–107, 141–158. Sommer, M., Halm, D., Weller, U., Zarei, M., Stahr, K., 2000. Lateral podzolization in a granite landscape. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 64 (4), 1434–1442. Sommer, M., Halm, D., Geisinger, C., Andruschkewitsch, I., Zarei, M., Stahr, K., 2001. Lateral podzolization in a sandstone catchment. Geoderma 103 (3–4), 231–247. Srivastava, P., Parkash, B., 2002. Polygenetic soils of the north-central part of the Gangetic Plains: a micromorphological approach. Catena 46 (4), 243–259.
Preface Throop, H.L., Archer, S.R., Monger, H.C., Waltman, S., 2012. When bulk density methods matter: implications for estimating soil organic carbon pools in rocky soils. J. Arid. Environ. 77 (1), 66–71. Zech, M., Andreev, A., Zech, R., Müller, S., Hambach, U., Frechen, M., Zech, W., 2010. Quaternary vegetation changes derived from a loess-like permafrost palaeosol sequence in northeast Siberia using alkane biomarker and pollen analyses. Boreas 39 (3), 540–550. Zech, M., Krause, T., Meszner, S., Faust, D., 2013. Incorrect when uncorrected: reconstructing vegetation history using n-alkane biomarkers in loess-paleosol sequences - a case study from the Saxonian loess region, Germany. Quat. Int. 296, 108–116. Zielhofer, C., Recio Espejo, J.M., Núnez Granados, M.A., Faust, D., 2009. Durations of soil formation and soil development indices in a holocene Mediterranean floodplain. Quat. Int. 209 (1–2), 44–65.
3
Daniela Sauer Institute of Geography, Dresden University of Technology, Germany Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected]. Reinhold Jahn Soil Science and Soil Protection Group, University of Halle, Germany Karl Stahr Institute of Soil Science and Land Evaluation, Hohenheim University, Stuttgart, Germany
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Catena journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/catena
Preface
Landscapes and soils through time — Progress and challenges in palaeopedology and soil geography Keywords: Soil geography Palaeopedology Soil landscapes Palaeosols Soil archives
some critical comments and recommendations for future research. The papers of this special issue will be cited where appropriate to show how each contribution is embedded within the overall frame of this bilateral special issue “Landscapes and soils through time”. 1. Progress and challenges in palaeopedology
This special issue mainly comprises selected papers presented at the International Conference “Landscapes and Soils through Time“, held from 29 July to 1 August 2011 at Hohenheim University, Stuttgart, Germany. In addition, a number of papers related to the topic were included. The conference was a joint activity of the Commissions Soil Geography and Palaeopedology of the International Union of Soil Sciences. It aimed at bringing together palaeopedologists and soil geographers to get insight into each other's field of research and exchange experience based on different views on the same object: soils — including recent, polygenetic, relic and fossil soils within their corresponding landscapes. We felt that geographers and palaeopedologists might learn from each other by including the perspective of the respective other discipline into their own concepts. For example, palaeopedologists usually work at pedon and horizon scales, and often use microscopic techniques to identify pedogenic processes and their chronological sequence in soils. In contrast, soil geographers look at soils at the landscape rather than pedon scale. They rather investigate soil associations than single pedons. This concept might be worth to be considered more explicitly in palaeopedological research as well, since palaeopedologists generally tend to interpret observed differences between two palaeosols by different palaeoclimatic conditions; however, such differences might also be due to different position of the palaeosols in the palaeo-relief (Jankowski, 2012). On the other hand, soil geographers tend to interpret observed coincidence of recent environmental conditions and properties of surface soils as evidence for environment–soil relationships, often not considering that surface soils may be polygenetic, and some of their properties might be inherited from past environmental conditions (Lucke et al., this volume). For example, if we find a reddish Luvisol with well-developed clay coatings in the Bt horizon in a dry Mediterranean climate, it does not necessarily mean that clay illuviation corresponds to the present soil environment – soil processes relationships. Micromorphological analysis may reveal that influx of calcareous dust has re-calcified the soil and clay illuviation is ceased under present conditions. These examples show that exchange of ideas and concepts between these two neighbor disciplines might be fruitful for both sides. On the following pages we will spotlight some major research objects and approaches in palaeopedology and soil geography, including 0341-8162/$ – see front matter © 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2013.08.016
Palaeopedologists aim at deciphering imprints of past climates and environmental conditions on relic soils and palaeosols (Costantini et al., 2009). For this purpose, they use existing knowledge on recent soil environment – soil properties relationships to interpret palaeosol properties in terms of palaeoenvironmental conditions. Palaeopedologists also apply knowledge on rates of soil-forming processes obtained from soil chronosequences to estimate the duration of past periods of soil formation that indicate phases of geomorphological stability of the respective landscape (e. g. Zielhofer et al., 2009). Their research moreover includes surface soils that often experienced climatic and environmental shifts and hence are often polygenetic in nature (e. g. Brock and Buck, 2009; Morrás et al., 2009; Scarciglia et al., 2003; Srivastava and Parkash, 2002), a fact that is not yet very widely perceived in the soil scientific community. Methodological approaches used in palaeopedology comprise, beside widely used standard procedures, soil-chemical analyses (and various weathering indices derived from soil-chemical data), clay mineralogy, thin section analysis by use of petrographic microscope, and scanning electron microscopy. More special approaches include analysis of various biological palaeoenvironmental proxies, e. g. faunal remains such as teeth and bone fragments (Tovar et al., this volume), macro remains of plants and charcoal, phytoliths and pollen, where these are sufficiently preserved (Golyeva and Andrič, this volume). Also analysis of stable isotope composition (mainly δ13C and δ18O) of bulk soil organic matter (SOM) or selected compounds of SOM and pedogenic carbonates has been more and more commonly applied over about the last two decades and has become a valuable source of information on palaeo-climate and -vegetation (Alçiçek and Alçiçek, this volume; Kovda et al., this volume). In addition, in recent years certain comparatively stable plantderived soil-organic compounds, e. g. plant membrane lipids and alkanes, have been explored for their potential for palaeovegetation reconstruction and have been successfully applied in a number of cases (e. g. Zech et al., 2010). However, development of these biomarker approaches is still in progress, and there are still several difficulties to be tackled, e. g. shifts of the composition of biomarkers due to selective degradation of some components (Zech et al., 2013). Other challenges that occur in interpreting palaeosols include post-burial alteration of palaeosols such as changes in chemical palaeosol properties (Alexandrovskiy and Sedov, this volume), contamination of palaeosol organic matter (PSOM) by modern carbon
2
Preface
affecting radiocarbon dating and the isotopic signature of the PSOM (Gocke et al., this volume), recrystallization, and effects of diagenetic processes in deeply buried palaeosols (Srivastava and Sauer, this volume). These challenges need to be addressed openly, and the extent of palaeosol alteration needs to be assessed as far as possible in order to be able to consider it in the interpretation of palaeosol properties. Where palaeoclimatic information obtained from other records such as lake or peat bog sediment cores, marine cores, speleothems, is available, palaeopedologists try to combine the information gained from the different archives (Bronnikova et al., this volume). Palaeosol-sediment sequences are usually less complete and have lower chronological resolution than laminated archives like those mentioned above. Nevertheless, they represent archives of unique value because in addition to palaeoclimatic information they provide evidence on when and how land surfaces responded to climatic shifts and became geomorphologically unstable (Wagner et al., this volume). Hence, causal relationships between climatic shifts and earth system responses may be extracted most clearly from palaeosol-sediment sequences. However, the time axis of a palaeosol-sediment sequence is more complex than that of e. g. aquatic sediment layers that accumulate on top of each other, thus following a unidirectional upward pointing time axis. The time axis of a soil-sediment sequence points upwards only during phases of sedimentation, whereas during periods of erosion, some sections of the time axis are erased, and during soil development the time axis points downwards. Time axes of Chinese loess-palaeosol sequences may be even more complex because sedimentation proceeded (at lower but nevertheless considerable rates) also during periods of soil development. As a consequence, in the same section of a profile, the time axis of sedimentation points upwards, whereas the time axis of pedogenesis points downwards, whereby the starting point of the pedogenesis time axis moves upwards with proceeding sedimentation. Unfortunately, these facts are often ignored when curves of various soil/sediment properties obtained from equidistant samples of soil-sediment sequences are created. Scientists having obtained such curves from a thick and apparently complete soil-sediment sequence are often tempted to plot them beside other existing curves, e. g. marine oxygen isotope curves, for correlation purposes. The obvious shortcoming of this commonly observed approach demonstrates the importance of developing conceptual pedological models that are able to explain chemical, magnetic and other soil data, instead of simply reporting obtained numbers or wiggle-matching different types of curves that partly differ even in the direction of their time axes. Another aspect that has been raised only recently in palaeopedology is carbon sequestration in palaeosols, in both pedogenic carbonates and SOM (Zech et al., this volume). This issue has received limited attention so far, but it is clearly relevant and needs to be discussed more extensively in the next future. Major problems in estimating carbon budgets that are stored in buried soils so far include missing information on the spatial extent of palaeosols that are usually investigated in gravel quarries or road cuts, and the fact that bulk density and content of rock fragments is required for calculating carbon budgets (Throop et al., 2012). At present, especially bulk density is not measured in most palaeopedological studies, and existing pedotransfer functions for bulk density, based on texture and SOM content, have serious limitations. We thus suggest including measurement of bulk density as a standard analysis in palaeopedology. This additional standard parameter would make palaeopedological data sets directly suitable for use in soil carbon storage estimates, e. g. for contributing them to the International Soil Carbon Database. Using pedotransfer functions seems rather risky especially for non surface soils, if one considers the related difficulties reported in the literature (e. g. De Vos et al., 2005; Hollis et al., 2012) and the relevance and thus responsibility of a scientist who makes such carbon budget calculations.
2. Progress and challenges in soil geography Soil geographers have identified and established concepts of characteristic soil distribution patterns, catenas and soil sequences in different climatic regions of the world, under different types of vegetation and on various parent materials. Thus they also generated important basic information for palaeoclimatic and -environmental interpretation of soil features. Soil geographers moreover investigate biogeochemical cycles (Cornelis et al., this volume), relief–soil relationships and lateral processes in terms of transport of solid material, water and solutes. The effects of downslope solid material transport on soil distribution patterns are well-known, including Regosols or Leptosols in shoulder and convex slope positions, well-developed soils in flat parts of the slope and colluvial deposits on the toe slope. Other aspects of lateral processes are less widely perceived. Examples are the formation of Pleistocene periglacial slope deposits in former permafrost areas of the mid-latitude regions that have a major influence on the present soil distribution patterns and soil properties in low mountain ranges, e.g. in Central Europe and North America (e. g. Kleber et al., 2013). Another lateral process that has received few attention in the past is lateral solute transport on dense periglacial slope deposits or subsoil horizons, although this kind of transport may considerably influence the soil pattern. Several examples were reported from the Black Forest (SW Germany), where e. g. lateral podzolization was first described (Sommer et al., 2000, 2001). Another case of lateral podzolization in an environment of less pronounced topography has been studied in Poland (Jankowski, this volume). Iron mobilization in Planosols or Stagnosols on plateaus, lateral transport on impermeable layers, and re-precipitation of iron oxides/hydroxides in better aerated pedons downslope were observed in the Black Forest as well (Fiedler and Jahn, 2005). This process leads to strongly iron-enriched soils (German Ockererde = ochre earth), downslope adjoining to Stagnosols or Planosols. Soils resulting from such kind of lateral solute transport in landscapes, leading to absolutely element-depleted upslope pedons and absolutely element-enriched downslope pedons, cannot yet be appropriately classified in the German or WRB systems.
References Brock, A.L., Buck, B.J., 2009. Polygenetic development of the Mormon Mesa, NV petrocalcic horizons: geomorphic and paleoenvironmental interpretations. Catena 77 (1), 65–75. Costantini, E.A.C., Makeev, A., Sauer, D., 2009. Recent developments and new frontiers in paleopedology. Quat. Int. 209 (1–2), 1–5. De Vos, B., Meirvenne, Van, Quataert, M.P., Deckers, J., Muys, B., 2005. Predictive quality of pedotransfer functions for estimating bulk density of forest soils. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 69, 500–510. Fiedler, S., Jahn, R., 2005. Accumulation soils like "Ockererde" - forgotten soil units in soil-classification systems. J. Plant Nutr. Soil Sci. 168 (6), 741–748. Hollis, J.M., Hannam, J., Bellamy, P.H., 2012. Empirically-derived pedotransfer functions for predicting bulk density in European soils. Eur. J. Soil Sci. 63, 96–109. Jankowski, M., 2012. Lateglacial soil paleocatena in inland-dune area of the Toruń Basin, Northern Poland. Quat. Int. 265, 116–125. Kleber, A., Terhorst, B., Bullmann, H., Hülle, D., Leopold, M., Müller, S., Raab, T., Sauer, D., Scholten, T., Dietze, M., Felix-Henningsen, P., Heinrich, J., Spies, E.-D., Thiemeyer, H., 2013. Subdued mountains of central Europe. Dev. Sedimentol. 66, 9–93. Morrás, H., Moretti, L., Píccolo, G., Zech, W., 2009. Genesis of subtropical soils with stony horizons in NE Argentina: autochthony and polygenesis. Quat. Int. 196 (1–2), 137–159. Scarciglia, F., Terribile, F., Colombo, C., Cinque, A., 2003. Late Quaternary climatic changes in Northern Cilento (Southern Italy): an integrated geomorphological and paleopedological study. Quat. Int. 106–107, 141–158. Sommer, M., Halm, D., Weller, U., Zarei, M., Stahr, K., 2000. Lateral podzolization in a granite landscape. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 64 (4), 1434–1442. Sommer, M., Halm, D., Geisinger, C., Andruschkewitsch, I., Zarei, M., Stahr, K., 2001. Lateral podzolization in a sandstone catchment. Geoderma 103 (3–4), 231–247. Srivastava, P., Parkash, B., 2002. Polygenetic soils of the north-central part of the Gangetic Plains: a micromorphological approach. Catena 46 (4), 243–259.
Preface Throop, H.L., Archer, S.R., Monger, H.C., Waltman, S., 2012. When bulk density methods matter: implications for estimating soil organic carbon pools in rocky soils. J. Arid. Environ. 77 (1), 66–71. Zech, M., Andreev, A., Zech, R., Müller, S., Hambach, U., Frechen, M., Zech, W., 2010. Quaternary vegetation changes derived from a loess-like permafrost palaeosol sequence in northeast Siberia using alkane biomarker and pollen analyses. Boreas 39 (3), 540–550. Zech, M., Krause, T., Meszner, S., Faust, D., 2013. Incorrect when uncorrected: reconstructing vegetation history using n-alkane biomarkers in loess-paleosol sequences - a case study from the Saxonian loess region, Germany. Quat. Int. 296, 108–116. Zielhofer, C., Recio Espejo, J.M., Núnez Granados, M.A., Faust, D., 2009. Durations of soil formation and soil development indices in a holocene Mediterranean floodplain. Quat. Int. 209 (1–2), 44–65.
3
Daniela Sauer Institute of Geography, Dresden University of Technology, Germany Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected]. Reinhold Jahn Soil Science and Soil Protection Group, University of Halle, Germany Karl Stahr Institute of Soil Science and Land Evaluation, Hohenheim University, Stuttgart, Germany