Abstract
The vertical soil-geographic zonality of the Chukotka Upland in the area of the Amguema River valley can be considered a model vertical zonality in the Low Arctic regions at the interface between the continental and oceanic climates. The plain bottom of the valley has a continental climate. The surrounding mountains are under the influence of an oceanic climate, which is more pronounced in the low mountains and less pronounced in the medium-high mountains. Three altitudinal soil zones are distinguished: (1) the plain Subarctic zone with the absolute heights below 200–400 m a.s.l., where cryoturbated humus-impregnated peat-mucky gleyzems are developed from loamy substrates, and gleyed soddy podburs are developed from loamy sandy substrates; (2) the low-mountain zone of a creeping alder forest (the forest-tundra zone?) of the Low Arctic at the heights of 400–700 m a.s.l., where mucky-gray-humus humus-impregnated podzolized gleyzems are developed under tundra patches, cryoturbated peat-mucky high-humus-impregnated podzolized gleyzems are developed under creeping alder thickets, and pedoliths are exposed in the zones of landslides; and (3) the mountain Middle Arctic zone at elevations above 700 m a.s.l., where very thin soil films predominate; gray-humus cryometamorphic lithozems are developed from the eluvium of magmatic rocks, and humus-impregnated cryometamorphic soils with quicksand suprapermafrost horizons are developed from the eluvium of hard sedimentary rocks.
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Original Russian Text © N.A. Karavaeva, 2013, published in Pochvovedenie, 2013, No. 5, pp. 517–532.
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Karavaeva, N.A. Soil zonality of the Chukotka Upland. Eurasian Soil Sc. 46, 468–483 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1064229313050050
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1064229313050050