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Cryoaridic Soils as a Genetic Type in the Russian Soil Classification System: Geography, Morphology, Diagnostics

  • GENESIS AND GEOGRAPHY OF SOILS
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Abstract—

Cryoaridic soils were proposed to be identified as an individual genetic soil type by Vladimir Volkovintser in the 1970s. Volkovintser argued that the specific properties of these soils are in good agreement with the soil-forming factors: ultracontinental climate, cryoxerophytic steppe or tundra-steppe vegetation, dry permafrost, and skeletal parent material. In cryoaridic soils, the properties of chestnut and pale soils are combined, but their individual features are due to the specific cryohumus AK horizon and secondary carbonates dominated by pendants. Cryoaridic soils were not included in the soviet soil classification system of 1977; in the Russian soil classification system, the type of cryoaridic soils with the AK–BPL–BCA–Cca horizons is included in the order of pale-metamorphic soils with the pale-metamorphic BPL horizon as diagnostic for all soil types of this order. However, our field research, analysis of publications, and the study of soil in the Central Soil Museum give us grounds to verify diagnostic criteria, to change the profile type formula of cryoaridic soils, and to review their taxonomic position in the classification system. We argue that the BPL diagnostic horizon should be replaced by the diagnostic property (pl), which means that cryoaridic soils should be transferred into another order, presumably, the order of humus carbonate-accumulative soils. Some additional subtypes are proposed. On highly skeletal shallow parent materials, cryohumus soils belonging to the order of organo-accumulative soils are developed.

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Notes

  1. The aridity index was calculated as the ratio of the mean annual precipitation to the potential evapotranspiration for the same period [46].

  2. The hydrothermal coefficient is the ratio of precipitation (mm) during the period with active (>10°C) daily temperatures to the accumulated sum of active temperatures (Σt) and is a quantitative characteristic of the water supply of plants.

  3. Phytomass was determined as an absolutely dry mass of living plants cut from a test plot of 1 × 1 m and the mass of dead plants (mortmass) sampled from the same test plot.

  4. The soil color according to the Munsell scale was determined at the field moisture varying from dry to slightly wet soil.

  5. See comments in [39] (pp. 45, 60, 62) and in [52].

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank M.V. Bocharnikova (Department of Biogeography, Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow), E.A. Shishkonakova (V.V. Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute, Moscow), T.E. Tkachuk (Transbaikal State University, Daursky State Natural Biosphere Reserve, Republic of Buryatia) for their help in describing the floristic composition of plant communities on cryoaridic soils. N.B. Khitrov actively participated in the discussion of classification problems, and the authors express their sincere gratitude to him for valuable comments.

Funding

This paper was prepared on the basis of materials of the study supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project no. 17-04-01526-a. Part of the field research, morphogenetic studies and the final synthesis of the data were carried out within the framework of the State Assignment of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences no. 0148-2019-0006. Verification of diagnostic criteria for cryoaridic soils was performed in agreement with research theme no. 1.4 of the Geographical Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University. The work with museum collections and part of field studies were performed in agreement with the State Assignment no. 121031700316–9 of the Institute of Soil Science and Agrochemistry, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Staromonetnyi per. 29, 119017, Moscow, Russia

    M. A. Bronnikova & Yu. V. Konoplianikova

  2. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie gory, GSP-1, 119991, Moscow, Russia

    M. I. Gerasimova

  3. Institute of Soil Science and Agrochemistry, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, prosp. Akad. Lavrent’eva 8/2, 630090, Novosibirsk, Russia

    E. A. Gurkova

  4. Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute, Pyzhevskii per. 7, 119017, Moscow, Russia

    M. I. Gerasimova & G. I. Chernousenko

  5. Sochava Institute of Geography, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ulan-Batorskaya ul. 1, 664033, Irkutsk, Russia

    V. A. Golubtsov

  6. Russian State Agrarian University–Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy, Timiryazevskaya ul. 49, 127434, Moscow, Russia

    O. E. Efimov

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  1. M. A. Bronnikova
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Bronnikova, M.A., Gerasimova, M.I., Konoplianikova, Y.V. et al. Cryoaridic Soils as a Genetic Type in the Russian Soil Classification System: Geography, Morphology, Diagnostics. Eurasian Soil Sc. 55, 283–298 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1064229322030036

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