Gleysol

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Distribution of Gleysols

A gleysol or gley soil is a

Mollisols (USDA soil taxonomy
), or as groundwater soils and hydro-morphic soils.

The term gley, or glei, is derived from Ukrainian: глей, romanized: hlei, and was introduced into scientific terminology in 1905 by the Ukrainian scientist Georgy Vysotsky.[1]

The clay on the right is exposed to air and is oxidized a reddish hue. The clay on the left is identical, but sealed in a glass jar for two weeks in an anaerobic setting, causing redox and color change to gley.

Gleysols occur within a wide range of

marine and lacustrine sediments of Pleistocene or Holocene age, having basic to acidic mineralogy. They are found in depression areas and low landscape
positions with shallow groundwater.

Wetness is the main limitation on agriculture of virgin gleysols;[2] these are covered with natural swamp vegetation and lie idle or are used for extensive grazing. Farmers use artificially-drained gleysols for arable cropping, dairy farming and horticulture. Gleysols in the tropics and subtropics are widely planted with rice.

Gleysols occupy an estimated 720 million hectares worldwide. They are

Amazon region, equatorial Africa, and the coastal swamps of Southeast Asia
.

Mid-Wales, United Kingdom. The organic-rich topsoil is over a grey and orange mottled subsoil developed in glacial till
("boulder clay")

They exhibit a greenish-blue-grey

fougerite
in gleysoils.

Gleysoils may be sticky and hard to work, especially where the gleying is caused by surface water held up on a slowly permeable layer. However, some

alluvial
situations.

Groundwater gleysoils develop where

ferrous iron
and organic matter content. The presence of reddish or orange mottles indicates localised re-oxidation of ferrous salts in the soil matrix, and is often associated with root channels, animal burrows, or cracking of the soil material during dry spells.

In the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB),[3] soils with redox processes due to ascending groundwater belong to the Reference Soil Group Gleysols. Soils with redox processes due to stagnant water are Stagnosols and Planosols.

See also

External links

Look up gley in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References

  1. ^ "gley". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2022-12-27. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  2. ^ "Gleysol - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics".
  3. ^ IUSS Working Group WRB (2022). "World Reference Base for Soil Resources, fourth edition" (PDF). International Union of Soil Sciences, Vienna.
  1. Trolard F., Bourrié G., Abdelmoula M., Refait P. and Feder F. 2007: Fougerite, a new mineral of the pyroaurite-iowaite group: description and crystal structure. Clays and Clay Minerals, vol. 55, no. 3, p. 323-334;
    doi:10.1346/CCMN.2007.0550308
    .
  2. Génin J.-M. R., Aïssa R., Géhin A., Abdelmoula M., Benali O., Ernstsen V., Ona-Nguema G., Upadhyay Ch. and Ruby Ch. 2005: Fougerite and FeII-III hydroxycarbonate green rust; ordering, deprotonation and/or cation substitution; structure of hydrotalcite-like compounds and mythic ferrosic hydroxide Fe(OH)2+x. Solid State Sciences, vol. 7., no. 5, p. 545-572.
    doi:10.1016/j.solidstatesciences.2005.02.001
    .

Further reading
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