Soils and Soilscapes

Abstract

Despite basic research on soil science in the Antarctic, overall views on this continent and its adjacent islands are rare. Detailed soil descriptions refer mostly to the areas of McMurdo and the Dry Valleys, a few places around research stations or individual, occasional landings (e.g. O 'Brien et al. 1979; Leonardi et al. 1987; Blume and Bölter 1993; Campbell et al. 1998; Bölter et al. 1994, 1999, 2000; Ohtani and Kanda, Chap. 5). These data have been used for syntheses and some regionalisations of the Antarctic ice-free regions (Campbell and Claridge 1987; Bockheim and Ugolini 1990; Blume et al. 1997, 1998). Nevertheless, soil maps of representative sites of the Antarctic are rare, and could show intrinsic variabilities of landscapes and soils. Such data become important when attempts are made to explain recent vegetation patterns, or when discussions arise about soil development, or their use as data archives (e.g. Tatur and Myrcha 1993; Fabiszewski and Wojtún 1993). The data for this chapter were mainly obtained during two expeditions to the Windmill Islands (Casey Station, 1991/1992) and King George Island (Arctowski Station, 1994/1995), but data from earlier expeditions to these places are also used. This chapter describes, at a local landscape scale, the distribution of a great variety of soils with the aim of showing soil associations, and presents their summarised properties obtained by standard laboratory methods. Soil classifications based on different schemes are used. This approach also refers to a merging of the terms soils and landscape to soilscape.