Soil Memory: Theoretical Basics of the Concept, Its Current State, and Prospects for Development

Abstract

Abstract The current state of knowledge on the problems of soil memory is highlighted. A brief review of recent publications concerning soils as information systems, soil behavior in time and space, and reconstruction of the environment based on soil records is given. Theoretical basics of the concept of soil memory as a soil capacity to record the environmental factors and soil forming processes in a set of stable features in the solid phase of the soil body are discussed. Mechanisms of recording, accumulation, and storage of this information, its particular carriers, and methods of their study are considered. Two major models of soil memory and distribution of records in a soil profile in response to evolutionary changes in the environment and soil are suggested in dependence on an increase or a decrease in the pedogenetic potential of climate and biota. A notion of geosystem memory is introduced. The blocks of geosystem memory are discussed in a hierarchy from a subsystem level to a level of particular discrete objects. Environmental proxy indicators for each block of geosystem memory are listed. Further prospects for the development of the concept of soil memory are seen in widening of a set of methods applied to study the solid-phase soil matrix and in linking the studies of particular components and elements of a soil body with its hierarchical morphogenetic analysis.