Soil memory: Types of record, carriers, hierarchy and diversity

Abstract

The concept of palimpsest-wise soil memory and record is generally characterized in comparison with the book-wise memory and record of sedimentary rocks. Soil systems have a capacity for storing information about environmental factors and pedogenic processes that have been acting for a period of pedogenesis. The main mechanisms of soil memory and record formation are those sets of pedogenic processes that generate the solid phase products and features within the multiphase soil system. The main types of solid-phase carriers of soil memory and their spatial/temporal hierarchy within the soil system are briefly described. The phenomena of isomorphism and polymorphism of soil record carriers in regard to the pedogenic processes should be realized when we try to decode and understand the information stored in soil memory. Each specific type of climate could not be imprinted in only one type of pedon. When reading the record in the soil system under one type of climate, it is obligatory to account for the diversity of solid phase soil horizons and pedons induced by the diversity of parent materials (lithodiversity), topography (topodiversity), biota (biodiversity) and duration of pedogenesis (chronodiversity).