Early Stages of Pedogenesis at the Bottom of a 30-Year-Old Artificial Depression under Semidesert Conditionsстатья
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Аннотация:Initial soils that developed at the bottom of an artificial hollow 30 × 40 m in size and 3 m in depth
have been studied. The hollow was dug on a plot with a predominance of solonetzic complexes in the soil
cover on the territory of the Dzhanybek Research Station in 1979. A soil with a shallow but clearly differen
tiated profile composed of a litter, a humusaccumulative W horizon leached from carbonates, and an under
lying C1ca horizon with a high content of dispersed carbonates formed in the hollow over 30 years. The total
thickness of these horizons is 7–10 cm. The morphology of the profile corresponds to the slightly alkaline
humusaccumulative calcareous soil type of the order of immature soils in the current classification of Rus
sian soils. The soil–sediment layer to a depth of >80 cm contains little soluble salts, predominantly sulfates;
the content of exchangeable Na does not exceed 1 meq/100 g. Groundwater of calcium sulfate composition
occurs at a depth of ~3.8 m. These features, together with additional moistening by lowsaline melt water,
ensure favorable conditions for the spontaneous propagation and development of herbaceous, shrubby, and
woody plants in the bottoms of artificial hollows. The development of a soil profile is accompanied by the
depletion of the clay fraction from the upper W horizon, presumably due to the predominant removal of
smectite minerals. In the upper W horizon, transformations of layered aluminosilicates takes place: it involves
the formation of illites from smectites and from smectitic layers in illite–smectite mixedlayered minerals
and partial vermiculitization of chlorites. The technology used upon the excavation of the hollow can be rec
ommended for growing woody–shrubby plants on soils of the solonetzic complex in the clay semidesert dur
ing a relatively short time period.