PALEOPEDOLOGY Comission sessions on 23rd World Congress of Soil Science

[Lilit Pogosyan]

Dear Colleagues,

The 23rd World Congress of Soil Science is getting closer and we hope that many of you will be participating. 

Please find a brief description on sessions proposed by Paleopedology Commission (one of them is a joint application with Micromorphology Commission), and one more session on Soil Genesis that all might be of your interest.
Atteched are the full descriptions.

We kindly remind you that the Abstract submission is open now, please submit your contributions by November 7. 

https://www.23wcss.org.cn/

Micromorphology as a Tool for Understanding the Evolution of Soils and Environments in Natural and Human-Impacted Landscapes (101002)

Description:

Despite rapid advancements in various methods for studying soil and environmental history, micromorphology remains one of the most powerful, sensitive, and high-resolution tools for paleoenvironmental research. Unlike most techniques that rely on homogenized bulk samples, non-destructive micromorphological analysis uniquely enables the detection of faint traces of initial and/or weakly developed soil processes and the reconstruction of sequences of both natural and anthropogenic soil and sedimentary transformations over time.

This session welcomes case studies on soil and environmental history in both natural and human-altered landscapes. We invite contributions on the evolution of soil and soil-sedimentary systems driven by climate and landscape changes, as well as human impacts such as agriculture, manufacturing, diverse construction activities, and settlement. Special attention will be given to the role of micromorphology in studying soils, sediments, and artifacts from archaeological sites.

Our goal is to bring together specialists applying micromorphology to investigate soil-sedimentary and environmental history in buried paleosols, exposed polygenetic soils, and archaeological contexts.     

Session Organizers: 

Elizabeth Solleiro Rebolledo 

Daniela Sauer 

Maria Bronnikova,

Fabio Terribile

Paleosols as Memory: Transdisciplinary Insights into Changing Paleoenvironments across Geological Timescales (106001)

Description:

Paleopedology significantly contributes to interpreting paleoenvironmental conditions across multiple geological periods providing invaluable data for paleoclimatic, paleontological, archaeological, sedimentary and stratigraphic, and paleogeomorphological studies. In addition, it recognizes pedological processes over time. 

This section welcomes studies that use paleosol profiles as a record/memory of paleoenvironmental processes (sensu lato) across various geological timescales, with a particular focus on correlation paleosol records with different other paleoenvironmental proxies and applying transdisciplinary interpretation. 

Our objective is to bring together paleopedolodists and experts from diverse scientific fields studying the past who apply knowledge about relict, buried, and exhumed paleosols, as well as paleofeatures in “current soil” profiles in paleoenvironmental studies, and, in a wider sence, for understanding soil systems and geosystems in time across local and global scales. 

Session Organizers:

Francisco Sérgio Bernardes Ladeira

Maria Bronnikova

Traditional and Novel Approaches for Understanding the Past of Soils and Soil-Sedimentary Systems (106002)

Description:

The utility of soils and paleosols to infer the processes, timing, and rates of their evolution, related to environmental conditions, depends upon the conceptual models, approaches, and methods that are applied. Progress in pedology and paleopedology always benefited from the integration of fundamental concepts with emerging novel ideas borne out of recent technological development. Examples of such fundamental concepts are the traditional functional-factorial model of soil development and the soil memory concept, describing soil-evolution pathways through environmental changes: how to trace, understand those pathways and project them to the future? The answer to this question requires an in-depth understanding of soils and soil-sedimentary systems in time and space. Those traditional concepts continued to serve the soil science community, particularly when combined with emerging analytical and computational techniques that improve estimates of soil age, applying new proxies such as isotopic signatures, various bioindicators, geochemical indicators, new holistic and high resolution approaches and techniques. As such, this session puts a focus on both novel and traditional approaches to the study of soil characteristics to highlight the current state-of-the-art in pedology and paleopedology.

This session will be designed as panel discussions with short presentations and an open debate on the advantages, limitations, and drawbacks of the presented methods, as well as the possibilities of combining different approaches and methods within a single study. We invite contributions that capitalize on emerging, traditional, or a combination of concepts, approaches, and methods to evaluate soils and their characteristics in any range of landscape conditions. We are particularly interested in showcasing studies that demonstrate the utility of novel methods while leveraging traditional techniques. Such contributions may draw from field, laboratory, and/or numerical approaches. Our goal is to bring together specialists applying new lines of reasoning and evidence towards achieving solutions to outstanding problems in pedology. 

Session Organizers:

Maria Bronnikova

Brad Sion

Xue-Feng Hu

Open discussion session on observed phenomena in soils and their underlying pedogenic processes: bring and share photos of your macro- and micromorphological observations and join the discussion on debated phenomena! (102004)

Description:

Despite significant advances in the field of pedology, there is a number of phenomena in soils and paleosols that are still under debate with respect to the pedogenic processes that create them, e.g., the formation of tongues in soils with clay illuviation (Glossic Retisols) and temporarily perched water (Glossic Stagnosols); the development of fragipans; the formation of Terra rossa; the question, whether the formation of pedogenic carbonates and redoximorphic features involves only inorganic processes or to what extent biological activity plays a role; the formation and behavior of what is called “mattic epipedon” in the Chinese Soil Classification, i.e., a topsoil horizon typical for high-mountain meadows, characterized by extremely abundant fine roots that occupy the majority of the horizon’s volume.

Many colleagues have made macro- and micromorphological observations on those phenomena and have developed their own explanations and hypotheses, based on their experience. This discussion session aims at a lively and interactive exchange of experiences and hypotheses among colleagues. We encourage all participants to bring photos of their observations on a USB key. These can illustrate the observations and the environmental settings they were made in, and can help the other participants to better understand the reported observations. Also, an important part of the discussion shall be dedicated to the question, how the existing different hypotheses on certain phenomena could be tested, including the application of novel methods that have evolved over the last decades (e.g., isotopic studies, NanoSIMS, single grain luminescence dating, etc.). The phenomena to be discussed include - but are not necessarily limited to - the ones named above. In order to help us structuring the discussion session, we ask colleagues who intend to contribute another topic to inform the session organizers by e-mail in advance.

Session Organizers:

Daniela Sauer

Cezary Kabala

John Galbraith

Best wishes,

Lilit Pogosyan