0000000000595766
AUTHOR
Dominique Righi
The role of pedogenic overprinting in the obliteration of parent material in some polygenetic landscapes of Sicily (Italy)
Abstract Many soils older than the Holocene have experienced several changes, and possess properties that may be due to the complex effect of several stages of soil development; these soils are called polygenetic. It is still rather unclear, however, if, as time elapses, pedogenic processes tend to diverge generating different soils, or converge towards increasingly similar soils. We studied five pedons (37°60′N, 13°90′E) exposed to present weathering simultaneously since the Holocene but located on Upper Miocene or Holocene parent material. Their XRD and FTIR clay mineralogy reveal an overall homogeneity; smectites, calcite and gypsum reach the thermodynamic equilibrium, a slight undersatu…
A new simple approach to evaluate pedogenic clay transformation in a Vertic Calcisol
The aim of this study is to characterize the pedogenic clay minerals by using simple approach: Mixing mineralogical and geochemical findings. The fine clay fractions (< 0.1 μm) of a Vertic Cambisol profile were studied by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and cation exchange capacity (CEC). Qualitative and quantitative mineralogical compositions of the clay mixture were determined. Moreover, chemical equilibria and thermodynamic stabilities of minerals (calcite, gypsum, kaolinite, smectites and illites) were studied using results of ionic activities obtained from total concentration of various aqueous species in water extracts from soil-saturated pastes. XRD ana…