environmental interpretation of paleosols

[yaa...@vms.huji.ac.il]

Dear colleagues,

As a retired palaeo-pedologist, now also interested in the History of
Earth
Sciences, I have a question to whoever might be able to answer it or
direct
me to the relevant publication on the history of palae-pedology.

I wonder who and when and where was the first to recognize and used
paleosols for environmental interpretation? Was it on the basis of
buried
soils observed in loess sections somewhere, perhaps Richthofen in
Europe
even before he went to China, or Murgoci in Romania or
somebody else before that ? I believe there is a long history, but
where is
this documented ?

Soils of the past - both buried and unburied - are becoming an
important
research object in the reproduction of past environmental conditions,
including in archaeology. They have been studied for over one hundred
years
but it has so far eluded to me who, when and where were some of the
pioneers
in this topic. Our methods are nowadays very different from those
early and
that may be reason why we neglect these pioneering precursors, so
hopefully
some of you interested in the History of Natural History will be able
to
help me.

Thanking you in advance,

Dan Yaalon
-------------------------------------------------

["Prof. Dr. Ludwig Zöller"]

Dear Dan,

I was surprised to learn myself a few years ago that apperently loess
and paleosol research may have the longest tradition in Serbia. I lerant
this from my friend Prof. Slobodan Markovic, Novi Sad, Serbia. For
details, lease, contact him with by best regards and recommendation. His
email is:
zb...@im.ns.ac.yu

Best wishes,
Ludwig


yaa...@vms.huji.ac.il schrieb:

--
Prof. Dr. Ludwig Zoeller
LS Geomorphologie
Univ. of Bayreuth
D-95440 Bayreuth, Germany
Tel. +49-921 552265
Fax +49-921 552314

[O.S.Khokhlova]

Dear Dan,
The paleosols buried under archaeological monuments
(kurgans or burial mounds or burial embankments) are investigated in
Russia for more then 100 years. Archaeologist Gorotsov Vasily Alekseevich
studying the kurgans of the Bronze Age in Kharkovskaya gubernija
(today it is Kharkovskaya oblast of Ukraine) noted the difference between
the thickness of the Chernozem layer in the buried paleosols buried
under kurgans and backgroundsoils in 1901. The first pedologist who
studied the under-kurgan paleosols in the same region was
Krishtophovich, 1914.

References (in Russian)
Ãîðîäöîâ Â.À. Ðåçóëüòàòû àðõåîëîãè÷åñêèõ èññëåäîâàíèé â Èçþìñêîì óåçäå Õàðüêîâñêîé ãóáåðíèè 1901 ãîäà // Òðóäû XII Àðõåîëîãè÷åñêîãî ñúåçäà. Ì.. 1905à.
Ãîðîäöîâ Â.À. Ðåçóëüòàòû àðõåîëîãè÷åñêèõ èññëåäîâàíèé â Áàõìóòñêîì óåçäå Åêàòåðèíîñëàâñêîé ãóáåðíèè 1903 ãîäà // Òðóäû XII Àðõåîëîãè÷åñêîãî ñúåçäà. Ì.. 1905á.
Êðèøòîôîâè÷ À.Í. Èññëåäîâàíèå ïî÷âû ïîä êóðãàíàìè â Õàðüêîâñêîé ãóá. // Ïî÷âîâåäåíèå. 1914. ¹1-2. Ñ.33-45 (íà ðóñ. è íåì. ÿç.)

My best wishes to you,
Olga Khokhlova

Hello yaalon,

Saturday, November 29, 2008, 2:42:35 PM, you wrote:


yvhai> Dear colleagues,

yvhai> As a retired palaeo-pedologist, now also interested in the History of
yvhai> Earth
yvhai> Sciences, I have a question to whoever might be able to answer it or
yvhai> direct
yvhai> me to the relevant publication on the history of palae-pedology.

yvhai> I wonder who and when and where was the first to recognize and used
yvhai> paleosols for environmental interpretation? Was it on the basis of
yvhai> buried
yvhai> soils observed in loess sections somewhere, perhaps Richthofen in
yvhai> Europe
yvhai> even before he went to China, or Murgoci in Romania or
yvhai> somebody else before that ? I believe there is a long history, but
yvhai> where is
yvhai> this documented ?

yvhai> Soils of the past - both buried and unburied - are becoming an
yvhai> important
yvhai> research object in the reproduction of past environmental conditions,
yvhai> including in archaeology. They have been studied for over one hundred
yvhai> years
yvhai> but it has so far eluded to me who, when and where were some of the
yvhai> pioneers
yvhai> in this topic. Our methods are nowadays very different from those
yvhai> early and
yvhai> that may be reason why we neglect these pioneering precursors, so
yvhai> hopefully
yvhai> some of you interested in the History of Natural History will be able
yvhai> to
yvhai> help me.

yvhai> Thanking you in advance,

yvhai> Dan Yaalon
yvhai> -------------------------------------------------

yvhai>


--
Best regards,
O.S.Khokhlova mailto:akho...@mail.ru

[carnicelli]

Dear Dan,
The oldest references I hit on were from the US,
and are treated in the introduction to
"Quaternary Soils" (Mahaney, 1978), making
refrence to Worthen (1873)
http://www.isgs.illinois.edu/maps-data-pub/publications/worthen-repts.shtml
and to Leverett (1898), The weathered zone
(Yarmouth) between the Illinoian and Kansan till
sheet. The Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science, pp. 81–86.
Maybe this is too young, but...
Cheers

Prof. Stefano Carnicelli
D.S.S.N.P., P.le Cascine 15
50144 Firenze Italy
e-mail stefano.c...@unifi.it
Phone +39 055 3288398
Fax +39 055 333273
Mobile 3804799354

[yaalon]

Dear Stefano Carnicelli,

Thank you for digging out the reference to Worthen (1873). Very interesting.
True, several geologists and especially paleobotanists mentioned already in
the 19th century 'fossil soils' in coal beds etc. But fossil plants may not
be in situ but transported. According to the Paleopedology Commission more
than one pedological feature is needed to recognize a paleosol. Does this
apply to Worthen ? and did he (or others) make any environmental
interpretation besides noting that fossil oplant must represenr an earth
surface. So if you have more details, please inform.

Best wishes,

Dan Yaalon
-------------------------------------------------
Prof. (emer.) Dan H. Yaalon
Institute of Earth Sciences
Hebrew University Givat Ram Campus
Jerusalem 91904, Israel
Fax : 972-2-5662581 or 02-5704411
E-Mail : yaa...@vms.huji.ac.il
-------------------------------------------------

["Prof. Dr. Ludwig Zöller"]

Dear Dan,
dear colleagues,

it is very interesting to note the comments from all over the world. I
am very much looking forward to Dan's review!

Best regards,
L. Zoeller

yaalon schrieb:

[Fenton, Thomas E [AGRON]]

Dr. Yaalon:
The following may not be the oldest publications but they are the ones I have used in class for the mid-western U.S.

Simonson, Roy W. 1941. Studies of buried soils formed from till in Iowa. SSSA 6: 373-381.

Scholtes, W.H., Ruhe, R.V. and Riecken, F.F. 1951. Use of the morphology of buried soil profiles in the Pleistocene of Iowa. 58: 295-306.

Prior to the above, geologists wrote about the concepts but were not explicit about calling the zones soils.

Kay, G.F. 1916. Gumbotil, a new term in Pleistocene Geology. Sci. 44:637-638.

Leighton, M.M. and MacClintock, P. 1930. Weathered zones in the drift sheets of Illinois. Jour. Geol. 38: 28-53.

I hope this material is of some use to you. I hope you are in good health.

Best wishes,
Tom Fenton



________________________________

[yaalon]

Dear Tom Fenton,

Thank you very much for the useful information. Appreciated. I couldn't
download the

<Scholtes, W.H., Ruhe, R.V. and Riecken, F.F. 1951. Use of the morphology

of buried soil profiles in the Pleistocene of Iowa. 58: 295-306> paper -
[Iowa Academy of Science perhaps ? ] and would appreciate it if you could
copy it
for me amd send to the address below, if possible, in any format. Thank you.
It seems to
be one of the few older papers specifying ''use ..of buried soils' in the
title.

The history of paleosol and related soil geomorphology investigations in the
US was very well
reviewed by Vance Holiday in Footprints in the Soil (see attached). We are
still missing a similar review for the rest of the world.

Glad that you continue to be interested in paleopedology.

Best wishes for the New Year,

Dan Yaalon

------------------------------------------------
Prof. (emer.) Dan H. Yaalon
Institute of Earth Sciences
Hebrew University Givat Ram Campus
Jerusalem 91904, Israel

Fax : 972-2-5662581 or -2-5704411

E-Mail : yaa...@vms.huji.ac.il
-------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fenton, Thomas E [AGRON]" <tefe...@iastate.edu>
To: <Paleop...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 7:36 PM
Subject: [Paleopedology] Re: environmental interpretation of paleosols

[Fenton, Thomas E [AGRON]]

It is the Iowa Academy of Science.  Sorry I forgot that part of the citation.  I will send you a copy of  that paper.

Tom Fenton

---

From: Paleop...@googlegroups.com on behalf of yaalon
Sent: Thu 12/18/2008 2:40 AM
To: Fenton, Thomas E [AGRON]
Cc: Paleop...@googlegroups.com

[Alexander Makeev]

Dear Dan,
I recently found an old brochure of K. Glinka "The goals of historic
pedology" <Zadachi istoricheskogo pochvovedenia, in Rusisan>,
published in Warsaw in 1904. Unfortunately this brochure is almost
forgotten, though Glinka's ideas are partly reproduced in his famous
text-books "Pelology" of 1927, 1931, 1935. "The goals of historic
pedology" is a review of both Russian and World data (including
Lyell,
Green, Richthofen, Leverett, Oldham, Liebrich and many others) on
buried and relic soils. Glinka stressed the environmental
significance
of ancient soils, outlined the goals for pedologists to study
paleosols in order to reconstruct ancient landscapes. He even pointed
out, that palesols could reveal landscape parameters, absent now.
K. Glinka reviewed both buried and ancient, relic soils, describing
separately their occurence, environmental significance and problems of
interpretation.
One of his ideas is also very promising, when he suggested, that we
could
study not only soils, remained in situ, but sediments, derived from
paleosols (that is a common case, as we know now). I plan to scan the
brochure and republish it in electronic journal of my Institute of
ecological soil science of Moscow University (http://jess.msu.ru). I
shall inform you if you like.
With the best wishes,
Alexander Makeev

[carnicelli]

Dear paleopedologists,
the 27th meeting of the International association of sedimentologists,
http://www.ias2009.com/
taking place in Alghero, Sardinia, Italy, on 20-23 September, will have a session, session h - PALEOSOLS IN THE SEDIMENTARY RECORD, on paleosols, convened by myself and friend sedimentologist Marco Benvenuti. Also, field trip FT1,
http://www.ias2009.com/index.asp?Pagina=2&TipoPagina=T1
will be highly interesting, also thanks to the presence of Peter Martini.
The meeting will be a great occasion to increase paleosol awareness in the geological community.
I warmly invite all of you to take the meeting into consideration; Sardinia in September is at its best, too.
Best wishes everybody!

Stefano Carnicelli

Professor of Pedology

Head of Soil Science Department, University of Florence

Tel. +39 055 3288398

Mobile +393804799354

Fax +39 055 333273

[yaalon]

Dear colleagues,

In response to my circluated question in 2008 who and when were the first to
try to
interpret historical environmental conditions from soil profiles I got
several interesting replies from different researchers and places. Thanks
to all. Firstly, we need
always to distinguish between buried and non-buried paleosols. It seems
that the
oldest published a report of buried paleosols is from 1726 when Marsigli,
an
Italian naturalist of the Danube and other regions, recognised and
illustrated
in Vojvodina (now Serbia) in some loessial sections along the the Danube a
buried paleosol
similar to the fertile surface soil, probably without interpreting this in
detail as indicating environmental change of the region (Marsigli 1726 ).
Apparently his report, part of six volumes about his work was now translated
into a more common language (which ?) , but I have no access to this
translation. The Memorial volume to Marsigli published by Slobodan Markovich
(QI 2009)
gives some more derails.

Anyway, thanks a lot to all for the replies.

Since Greg Retallack from Oregon is now prepating a brief history of
paleopoedolgy for the September 2010 Peleopedology Conference in
Petrified Forest, Arizona, I thought that this information may be of
interest to all..

Secondly the interpretation of non-buried paleosols is a different
matter )see below).

Alex Makeev - sorry for not responding to your kind letter earlier. I would
certainly be very intereste ti see and/or receive
the interesting 1904 brochure by Glinka when scaned. Kindly inform me about
the progress and how I can receive it..

My latest contribution to the question of paleo-environmentak reconstruction
of soil evolution was recently included in IUSS Bulletin 116. Comments are
welcome. Maria Gerasimova has a Russian translation which she is trying to
include in a publication.

Paleopedology is in good health.

Sincerely,

Dan Yaalon
-------------------------------------------------

Prof. (emer.) Dan H. Yaalon
Institute of Earth Sciences
Hebrew University Givat Ram Campus
Jerusalem 91904, Israel

Fax : 972-2-5662581 or 02-5704411

E-Mail : yaa...@vms.huji.ac.il
-------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alexander Makeev" <Make...@gmail.com>
To: "International paleopedology commission"
<Paleop...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 4:56 PM
Subject: [Paleopedology] Re: environmental interpretation of paleosols

>

> Dear Dan,
> I recently found an old brochure of K. Glinka "The goals of historic
> pedology" <Zadachi istoricheskogo pochvovedenia, in Rusisan>,
> published in Warsaw in 1904. Unfortunately this brochure is almost
> forgotten, though Glinka's ideas are partly reproduced in his famous
> text-books "Pelology" of 1927, 1931, 1935. "The goals of historic
> pedology" is a review of both Russian and World data (including Lyell,
> Green, Richthofen, Leverett, Oldham, Liebrich and many others) on
> buried and relic soils. Glinka stressed the environmental significance
> of ancient soils, outlined the goals for pedologists to study
> paleosols in order to reconstruct ancient landscapes. He even pointed

> out, that palesols could reveal landscape parameters, absent now. One

> of his ideas is also very promising, when he suggested, that we could
> study not only soils, remained in situ, but sediments, derived from
> paleosols (that is a common case, as we know now). I plan to scan the
> brochure and republish it in electronic journal of my Institute of
> ecological soil science of Moscow University (http://jess.msu.ru). I
> shall inform you if you like.
> With the best wishes,
> Alexander Makeev

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