Paleosol

In the geosciences, paleosol (palaeosol in Great Britain and Australia) can have two meanings. The first meaning, common in geology and paleontology, refers to a former soil preserved by burial underneath either sediments (alluvium or loess) or volcanic deposits (volcanic ash), which in the case of older deposits have lithified into rock. In Quaternary geology, sedimentology, paleoclimatology, and geology in general, it is the typical and accepted practice to use the term "paleosol" to designate such "fossil soils" found buried within either sedimentary or volcanic deposits exposed in all continents as illustrated by Rettallack (2001), Kraus (1999), and other published papers and books.

In soil science, paleosols are soils formed long periods ago that have no relationship in their chemical and physical characteristics to the present-day climate or vegetation. Such soils form on extremely old continental cratons and as small scattered localities in outliers of ancient rock.

Because of the changes in the Earth's climate over the last fifty million years, soils formed under tropical rainforest (or even savanna) have become exposed to increasingly arid climates which cause former oxisols, ultisols or even alfisols to dry out in such a manner that a very hard crust is formed. This process has occurred so extensively in most parts of Australia as to restrict soil development - the former soil is effectively the parent material for a new soil, but it is so unweatherable that only a very poorly developed soil can exist in present dry climates, especially when they have become much drier during glacial periods in the Quaternary.

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