SOIL STRATIGRAPHY

The use of palaeosols or geosols that evolved over a specific soil-forming interval and are traceable over a wide area as stratigraphic units or pedostratigraphic units (see stratigraphy). Such pedostratigraphic units represent marker horizons, may represent a major hiatus in the lithostratigraphic record (see lithostratigraphy) and/or may provide evidence of more than one episode of soil development. A major problem for soil stratigraphy is the fact that soil layering may be produced by several different processes, not all of which are conducive to standard stratigraphic interpretation but require a pedogeomorphic interpretation. Some soil layers are inherited from the parent material (original sedimentary layering), others are the product of pedogenesis (e.g. soil horizons) contemporaneous with soil development, and still others may be produced by various geogenic processes (geological and/or geomorphological) and pedogenic processes that leave later imprints.

[See alsopolygenetic]