Podzol development on different aged coastal bars of Lake Ladoga

Abstract

This paper presents the result of the studies of soil formation on different aged coastal bars in the transgression zone of Lake Ladoga in the Nizhnesvirsky Nature Reserve (Leningrad region, North-West of the Russian Federation). The investigation presents the data on soil chronoseries, located on four Ladoga coastal bars of different ages from 70±25 to 1590±25 years BP. We estimated the trends of accumulation and transformation of organic matter, elemental composition of humic acids (HAs), development of plant communities and the influence of soil formation factors on the formation rate of soil horizons. We assessed the degree of soil organic matter stabilization using modern instrumental methods (spectroscopy of nuclear magnetic resonance CP/MAS 13C-NMR). An integral indicator of the hydrophobicity of HAs, which represents the total fraction of unoxidized carbon atoms, is proposed. The Ladoga Holocene transgression is one of the most informative and applicable models for pedogenesis; successional processes occurring in young and mature areas can be traced here. We identified local processes of soil formation such as podzolization, gleyfication, peat formation and humus accumulation. Physical, physical-chemical and biological soil properties with a detailed description of the morphology of soil of different aged coastal bars are presented.