Ekranic Technosols and Urbic Technosols of Toruń Necropolis

Abstract

Excavations for graves lead to development of specific soils, which could be named Necrosols. Soils of graveyards occur throughout the world. Cemeteries could be found in every town or city and in most villages. Many of such soils could be classified as Ekranic Technosols, other as Urbic Technosols. Sobocka (2003) has defined a new anthropogenic soil type included in the latest supplement of the Slovak anthropogenic soil classification. Necrosols are thus defined as soils formed by special human activity in cemeteries and burial grounds with specific soil horizons (layers) sequence, specific physical, chemical and biological properties. One and only published paper representing genetic approach to investigation of cemetery soils was also written by Sobocka (2004). The aim of this paper is to investigate morphological, chemical and physical properties of Necrosols in Torun and to discuss their position in the WRB Classification System. This is a part of larger studies on urban soils of Torun town in Northern Poland.