The soil–cryogenic complex: Evidence of late Pleistocene–Holocene coevolution of permafrost and cryosols at the Kolyma Lowland

Abstract

One of the most important problems of cryopedology is the interaction of pedogenic processes with the processes that form the structure of the uppermost layers of the near‐surface permafrost. The thickness, structure, spatial variability, and other features are responsible for the reaction of the soil‐permafrost system to the bioclimatic fluctuations as well as the contemporary anthropogenic pressure. Together the soil profile and the upper layers of permafrost form the natural body of the “soil–cryogenic complex,” which is the result of simultaneous late Pleistocene–Holocene soil and permafrost coevolution. Pedogenic and cryogenic processes together form organic‐accumulative horizons above the permafrost table that have often been described in the profiles of Cryosols in different regions of Arctic. The multiannual dynamics of summer thawing depth determine the involvement of the material of these shielding horizons into the zone of active modern pedogenesis or its exclusion from it in case of their frozen state. Soil surface microrelief, complexity of the vegetation, and spatial differences of thermal properties of the suprapermafrost soil horizons and the transient layer of permafrost are responsible for the complicated pattern of permafrost table microrelief. Thus, the long‐term study of cryogenic soils that are developed on the close underlying permafrost provides improved understanding of the natural‐historical body—soil‐cryogenic complex.