| Abstract: | By analogy with soil catenas, which are groups of related soils differing from one another as a result of variation in relief and drainage, the author suggests the existence of geochemical soil catenas, in which the lateral migration of chemical elements links the related soils of uplands, slopes, and depressions into a geochemical entity. On the basis of the conditions of migration, soils are divided into geochemically autonomous, eluvial soils on uplands and geochemically subordinate soils on slopes (transaccumulative situations) and in depressions (superaqueous situations). In humid regions, geochemical soil catenas are distinguished mainly on the basis of the mobility of iron and aluminum compounds; in arid regions, mostly in terms of the mobility of the sulfates and chlorides of sodium and calcium. Geochemical soil catenas in the periglacial situations of the Antarctic and the Tien Shan and in the humid subarctic situation of northern Scandinavia were investigated in the field. The field data and the available literature are used to construct a typology of the world's principal geochemical soil catenas and their determinant factors. |
