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Weathering, mineral formation, and transformation processes along slopes are complex. In cool mountainous regions, undisturbed soil development with a strong vertical leaching element may abruptly change as a result of erosion, accumulation, lateral water fluxes and aeolian input. We investigated soils in the eastern Karkonosze Mountains that have developed on silicatic slope deposits. To date, illite,...
High-mountain soils develop in particularly sensitive environments. Consequently, deciphering and predicting what drives the rates of soil formation in such environments are a major challenge. In terms of soil production or formation from chemical weathering, the predominating perception for high-mountain soils and cold environments is often that the chemical weathering ‘portion’ of soil development...
Chemical weathering of rocks or sediments is extremely important for the generation of soils, for the evolution of landscape, and as a main source of inorganic nutrients for plant growth and therefore for life. Temporal trends in weathering mechanisms, plant succession and nutrients availability in cold environments can be successfully studied in soil chronosequences along a glacier forefield. In...
Using published and new chronosequence datasets from the European Alps and the Wind River Range (Rocky Mountains, USA), we report for the first time a chronosequence of more than 1Ma for soil organic carbon, nitrogen and organic matter (SOM) fractions from alpine soils. The investigated parameters include total carbon and nitrogen as well as the stable (resistant to H 2 O 2 oxidation)...
As a consequence of global warming, additional areas will become ice-free and subject to weathering and soil formation. The most evident soil changes in the Alps will occur in proglacial areas where young soils will continuously develop due to glacier retreat. Little is known about the initial stages of weathering and soil formation, i.e. during the first decades of soil genesis. In this study, we...
Proglacial areas in the Alps usually cover a time span of deglaciation of about 150years (time since the end of the ‘Little Ice Age’ in the 1850s). In these proglacial areas soils have started to develop. Due to the continuous retreat of the Morteratsch glacier (Swiss Alps), the corresponding proglacial area offers a continuous time sequence from 0 to 150year-old surfaces. Furthermore, an optimal...
Investigations in Alpine soils indicate that mineral weathering is much faster in ‘young’ soils (<1000yr) than in ‘old’ soils (∼10,000yr). However, little is known about the initial stages of weathering and soil formation, i.e. during the first decades of soil genesis. In this study we investigated rock-forming minerals weathering at very early stages of soil formation. Due to the continuous retreat...
The present work focuses on the subalpine range of the Italian Alps to determine the influence of aspect and consequently climate on soil humus properties and chemistry. This was done by comparing soils developing in north- and south-facing sites on siliceous parent material. The soils were investigated with respect to the total organic C and N content, C and N contents of organic matter (OM) density...
Soil organic matter (SOM) may give precious information about the age of soil landscapes and, thus, can contribute to decipher geomorphic surface dynamics. We tested five methods of isolating the oldest possible stable organic matter of 2 soil profiles developed on a Pleistocene morainic paragneiss substratum in an Alpine environment in northern Italy. Before and after the individual treatments, the...
A weathering sequence with soils developing on volcanic, trachy-basaltic parent materials with ages ranging from 100–115,000 years in the Etna region served as the basis to analyse and calculate the accumulation and stabilisation mechanisms of soil organic matter (SOM), the transformation of pedogenic Fe and Al, the formation and transformation of clay minerals, the weathering indices and, by means...
The relationship and mechanisms among weathering processes, cation fluxes, clay mineralogy, organic matter composition and stability were studied in soils developing on basaltic material in southern Italy (Sicily). The soils were transitions between Phaeozems and Vertisols. Intense losses of the elements Na, Ca and Mg were measured indicating that weathering has occurred over a long period of time...
The older forest type Quercetum–Betuletum (oak/birch; Q-type vegetation) in southern Switzerland and northern Italy was to a large extent replaced by chestnut forests (Castanea sativa; C-type vegetation) in roman times. When laurophylloid vegetation (L-type vegetation) invaded some of these chestnut systems during the last few decades, it caused detectable changes in organic chemistry. The invasion...
In recent decades laurophylloid vegetation has started to colonise forests of southern Switzerland and northern Italy. The increased colonisation since about 1950 is due to increased winter temperatures and urbanisation. With respect to the changes in the vegetation cover, the question arises as to whether or to which extent they influence soil organic matter quality and chemistry. In southern Switzerland,...
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