Mountainous meadow-steppe soils in high mountains of the Eastern Caucasus region

The results of comprehensive investigations into the soil-forming conditions, morphology, substantive composition, physicochemical properties, bulk elemental composition, and mineralogy of mountainous meadow-steppe soils of the Eastern Caucasus region are discussed. The analysis of the obtained and...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Eurasian soil science 2009-06, Vol.42 (6), p.591-599
Main Author: Molchanov, E. N.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biota
Chemical composition
Decomposing organic matter
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Genesis and Geography of Soils
Geochemistry
Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences
Humus
Meadows
Mineralogy
Mountains
Physicochemical properties
Rocks, Metamorphic
Soil formation
Soil sciences
Soils
Steppes
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The results of comprehensive investigations into the soil-forming conditions, morphology, substantive composition, physicochemical properties, bulk elemental composition, and mineralogy of mountainous meadow-steppe soils of the Eastern Caucasus region are discussed. The analysis of the obtained and published data has shown that the formation of these soils takes place in a relatively arid high-mountain environment from the coarse-textured eluvium of noncalcareous rocks. Two major pedogenetic processes with the participation of soil biota—humus accumulation and argillization—are responsible for their origin. Suggestions for improving the classification of mountainous meadow-steppe soils are given.
ISSN:1064-2293
1556-195X
DOI:10.1134/S1064229309060027