The Skyline of Paleopedology

Abstract

Paleopedology is a booming scientific discipline that studies the soils of the past geological epochs in order to assess the paleoenvironmental evolution. The scope of paleosol studies embraces not only soils themselves, but also the products of their involvement in biogeosphere cycles. This ensures the planetary role of pedogenesis, which includes the transformation of the upper layers of the lithosphere leading to the increase in fine earth, formation of new minerals, and residual or accumulative concentration of elements. In the geological history of the Earth, pedogenesis is realized within the framework of exogenesis, which includes weathering, soil formation, sedimentation, diagenesis, and geochemical migration. The pedolithosphere records the critical points in the landscape evolution of the Earth from the very onset of the geological record, including the oxygenation of the atmosphere, the emergence of the higher plants and herbaceous biomes, the dynamics of Interglacial–Glacial cycles, etc. Paleosols are the base for paleogeographic reconstructions and predictive models of the future climate change. Paleopedology expands the horizons of soil science within the system of biogeosphere sciences and determines the development of new scientific disciplines—bacterial paleontology, paleogeochemistry, biogeomorphology, astropedology, geoarchaeology, ecological paleopedology, soil paleocryogenesis and cryobiosphere studies. The historical dimension granted by paleopedology makes pedology a mature historical science.