soil organic carbon quantity chemistry and thermal stability in a mountainous landscape a rock eval pyrolysis survey mountain soils store huge amounts of carbon which may be highly vulnerable to the strong land use and climate changes that mountain areas currently experience worldwide here we tested the rock eval re pyrolysis as a proxy technique to i quantify soil organic carbon soc stocks ii bring insights into soc bulk chemistry and iii investigate biogeochemical stability at the landscape scale in a mountain area of the french calcareous prealps a total of 109 soils from 11 eco units representing the variety of ecosystems of the study area were analyzed with re pyrolysis re pyrolysis showed an excellent predictive performance r2 0 99 for soc content even in calcareous soils the technique revealed specific chemical fingerprints for some eco units and soil types with decreasing hydrogen index values from anthroposols 425 62 mg hc g soc to umbrisols leptosols 311 49 mg hc g soc and to cambisols 278 35 mg hc g soc associated with an increase in soc maturation newly developed re pyrolysis indices revealed the high stability of soc in most eco units developed on cambisols acidic grasslands alpine meadows bushy facies and a significantly lower stability of soc in mountain ridges sheepfold areas and coniferous forest soils the persistence of soc in this mosaic of ecosystems may depend not only on its chemistry or thermal stability but also on local environmental factors such as climatic conditions or ph especially for high altitude soils overall re pyrolysis appears as an appropriate tool for landscape scale carbon inventories and could become a standardized proxy for assessing the vulnerability of soc stocks

erosion record in lake la thuile sediments prealps france evidence of montane landscape dynamics throughout the holocene lake la thuile in the northern french prealps 874 m a s l provides an 18 m long sedimentary sequence spanning the entire lateglacial holocene period the high resolution multi proxy sedimento

a 14 000 year sediment yield record from western germany based on annually laminated lake sediments the reconstruction of sediment yield data for the catchment of lake holzmaar 205 8 ha in the eifel mountains western germany is based on high resolution geochemical and physical analyses of an absolutely dated sediment record this technique provides flux rates of allochthonous minerogenic deposition for the last 13 840 years the pleistocene holocene transition is characterized by instable soils and vegetation caused by adjustment of the catchment to interglacial climatic conditions these instabilities are the reason for elevated mean sediment yields in the catchment of 16 t km 2 yr 1 until 9800 cal bp during most of the holocene erosive processes are insignificant and sediment yields are very low 1 5 t km 2 yr 1 since humans cleared the forests for agriculture and early industrial purposes the natural environment has been disturbed and sediment yields increased to mean values of 14 t km 2 yr 1 during the last 2750 years comparisons of reconstructions from the eifel area with similar data from southern sweden and with measured data from lakes reservoirs and monitoring sites suggest that quantitative reconstructions based on lake holzmaar sediments may be regarded as reliable despite uncertainties related to the methods of reconstruction applied

weathering and evolution of soils formed on granitic glacial deposits results from chronosequences of swiss alpine environments abstract two soil chronosequences of mountainous ecosystems in switzerland served as the basis to calculate the accumulation of soil organic matter transformation of pedogenic fe and al and net losses of the main elements ca mg k na fe al mn and si by means of mass balance calculations elemental losses due to deglaciation and exposure to the weathering environment were calculated these mass balance calculations indicate that extensive mineral weathering resulted in significant leaching losses of si major base cations and al particularly from the upper horizons the losses are especially pronounced in the early stages of soil formation in most cases the exponential decay model incorporating an asymptotic or logarithmic regression model seems to provide a good description of weathering the greatest changes in the soil chemistry of these alpine soils on granitic host material occurred within the first 3000 4000 years of soil development later the weathering rates decreased rapidly and the overall depletion of elements nearly reached an asymptote we also found that the mean ratio of al t fe d al d fe t of the fine earth of the a e and b horizons is closely linked to the duration of soil development a very rapid decrease of this ratio also occurred at the beginning of soil evolution in order to reach asymptotic values after about 3000 years consequently this ratio could be a good indicator of the age of alpine soils furthermore there is a close relationship between the mass of organic c or n in the whole profile and the soil age the older the soil the higher the corresponding mass per unit area the chronofunctions presented give a first attempt of the chemical soil evolution in the alps however only little data has been available up until now regarding alpine soils and this fact inhibits a more detailed observation of the changes that have occurred over a period of 2000 8000 years of soil formation under similar climatic conditions

quantification of soil erosion rates related to ancient maya deforestation we used seismic and sediment core data to quantify soil erosion rates for the past 6000 yr in the closed catchment of lake salpeten in the tropical lowlands of northern guatemala the region was affected by ancient maya land use from before ca 1000 b c to a d 900 this period of human impact coincided with deposition in the lake of a detrital unit maya clay as much as 7 m thick that contrasts sharply with the relatively organic rich gyttja deposited both before and after maya occupation of the watershed the greatest soil loss with mean sustained values of 1000 t km2yr 1 occurred in the middle and late preclassic periods 700 b c to a d 250 associated with relatively low maya population densities soil erosion slowed during the period of maximum population density in the late classic period a d 550 830 indicating a decoupling between human population density and soil erosion rate the most rapid soil loss occurred early during initial land clearance suggesting that even low numbers of people can have profound impacts on lowland tropical karst landscapes

learning to read the chemistry of regolith to understand the critical zone the base of the critical zone includes the mantle of altered soil and rock regolith that changes in response to chemical physical and biological processes occurring at earth s surface these processes are recorded in the chemistry of the regolith and this long term record can often be deciphered for example on eroding ridgetops where flows are generally downward for water and upward for earth material element concentrations vary with depth to constitute depletion addition depletion enrichment and biogenic profiles models can be used to explore the records of mineral dissolution atmospheric input coupled dissolution precipitation and biolifting documented in these profiles these models enable interpretation of the effects of time climate rates of erosion and human and other biotic impacts on the profile patterns by testing quantitative models against the long term record of information in regolith we will learn to project changes arising from human and natural perturbations of the critic

humans as geologic agents a deep time perspective humans move increasingly large amounts of rock and sediment during various construction activities and mean rates of cropland soil loss may exceed rates of formation by up to an order of magnitude but appreciating the actual importance of humans as agents of global erosion necessitates knowledge of prehistoric denudation rates imposed on land surfaces solely by natural processes amounts of weathering debris that compose continental and oceanic sedimentary rocks provide one such source of information and indicate that mean denudation over the past half billion years of earth history has lowered continental surfaces by a few tens of meters per million years in comparison construction and agricultural activities currently result in the transport of enough sediment and rock to lower all ice free continental surfaces by a few hundred meters per million years humans are now an order of magnitude more important at moving sediment than the sum of all other natural processes operating on the surface of the planet relationships between temporal trends in land use and global population indicate that humans became the prime agents of erosion sometime during the latter part of the first millennium a d

calendar dated glacier variations in the western european alps during the neoglacial the mer de glace record mont blanc massif holocene glacier records from the western european alps are still sparse although a number of sites are well suited to constraining pre and early little ice age lia glacier advances the present study provides the first dendrochronologically based and calendar dated neoglacial glacier chronology for the mont blanc massif french alps it is based on the analysis of over 240 glacially buried pinus cembra subfossil logs and wood remains found either embedded in till or as detrital material in the mer de glace right lateral moraine only a few of the samples were found to be formally in situ but we show that some logs were virtually in situ not rooted but showing little or no evidence of reworking and could be used to accurately reconstruct past glacier margin behavior in space and time uncertainties regarding the other samples may relate to original growth location and or to outer wood decay the resulting dates followed by a were therefore considered maximum limiting ages for glacier advances the main burial events interpreted as glacier advances occurred between ca 1655 and 1544 bc between ca 1230 and 1105 bc between ca 1013 and 962 937 bc at ca 802 777 bc after 608 bc between 312 and 337 ad between ca 485 ad and 606 ad between 1120 and 1178 ad between ca 1248 and 1278 1296 ad and after 1352 ad these advances predate the late lia maxima known from historical sources the magnitude of the advances gradually increased to culminate in three near neoglacial maxima during the 7th 12th and 13th centuries ad followed by a first lia neoglacial maximum in the second half of the 14th century ad the pattern of neoglacial events described here is coherent with central and eastern alpine glacier chronologies this indicates marked synchronicity of late holocene glacier variability and forcing at a regional scale although occasional differences could be detected between western and eastern records the mer de glace record also confirms the link between the timing of sediment erosion in a high elevation glaciated alpine catchment and subsequent deposition in the sub alpine lake bourget

6600 years of human and climate impacts on lake catchment and vegetation in the julian alps lake bohinj slovenia abstract mountain grazing and ore processing had a significant impact on the alpine environment in the last 5000 years but few studies have so far focused on environmental changes of the south eastern alps this study investigates the vegetation history and sedimentary processes in the catchment of lake bohinj julian alps slovenia where a 12 m long core was collected in the central part of the lake sediment in the early holocene section of the core was partially reworked due to a major seismic event dated to 6711 6523 yr cal bp rapuc et al 2018 therefore a detailed palaeoenvironmental reconstruction was performed only for the top 4 4 m of the core here the results of mineralogical sedimentological geochemical stable isotope 13c and 15n and pollen analysis are presented in order to better understand the impact of people agriculture grazing mining on the environment and climate human interactions over the last 6600 years the results of palynological research suggest that at ca 6000 yr cal bp lake bohinj was surrounded by mixed forest composed of picea abies deciduous quercus with fagus becoming dominant after ca 3300 yr cal bp in the bronze and especially the iron age 3500 2500 yr cal bp when the region was according to archaeological data densely populated clearing of forests due to agriculture livestock production and metallurgical activities was detected through cerealia type pollen plantago lanceolata and the decline of abies these activities probably triggered soil erosion recorded as increased sedimentation rates in the subsequent centuries human impact on the environment continued increased but it seems that the watershed was not destabilised again several periods of high terrigenous input were recorded at 6100 6000 5700 5550 5000 4600 3900 3700 3550 2300 2200 yr cal bp and could be associated with a mobilisation of river inflow from the eastern flysch bearing catchment due to river migration during periods of wetter climate these flood patterns match with periods of enhanced flood activity in the wider alpine region

changes in erosion patterns during the holocene in a currently treeless subalpine catchment inferred from lake sediment geochemistry lake anterne 2063 m a s l nw french alps the role of climate and human activities a high resolution sedimentological and geochemical study was performed on a 20 m long core from the alpine lake anterne 2063 m a s l nw french alps spanning the last 10 ka sedimentation is mainly of minerogenic origin the organic matter quantity toc as well as its quality hydrogen hi and oxygen oi indices both indicate the progressive onset and subsequent stabilization of vegetation cover in the catchment from 9950 to 5550 cal bp during this phase the pedogenic process of carbonate dissolution is marked by a decrease in the calcium content in the sediment record between 7850 and 5550 cal bp very low manganese concentrations suggest anoxic conditions in the bottom water of lake anterne these are caused by a relatively high organic matter terrestrial and lacustrine content a low flood frequency and longer summer stratification triggered by warmer conditions from 5550 cal bp a decrease in toc stabilization of hi and higher sedimentation rates together reflect increased erosion rates of leptosols and developed soils probably due to a colder and wetter climate then three periods of important soil destabilization are marked by an increased frequency and thickness of flood deposits during the bronze age and by increases in topsoil erosion relative to leptosols hi increases during the late iron age roman period and the medieval periods these periods are also characterized by higher sedimentation rates according to palynological data human impact deforestation and or pasturing activity probably triggered these periods of increased soil erosion

historical soil erosion and land use change during the last two millennia recorded in lake sediments of frickenhauser see northern bavaria central germany based on palaeolimnological investigations on a 1275 cm long lacustrine sediment record sediment yields sy and denudation rates dr for the last 2000 years were reconstructed from frickenhauser

the history of human induced soil erosion geomorphic legacies early descriptions and research and the development of soil conservation a global synopsis abstract this paper presents a global synopsis about the geomorphic evidence of soil erosion in humid and semihumid areas since the beginning of agriculture historical documents starting from ancient records to data from the mid twentieth century and numerous literature reviews form an extensive assortment of examples that show how soil erosion has been perceived previously by scholars land surveyors farmers land owners researchers and policy makers examples have been selected from ancient greek and roman times and from central europe southern africa north america the chinese loess plateau australia new zealand and easter island furthermore a comprehensive collection on the development of soil erosion research and soil conservation has been provided with a particular focus on germany and the usa geomorphic evidence shows that most of the agriculturally used slopes in the old and new worlds had already been affected by soil erosion in earlier prehistoric times early descriptions of soil erosion are often very vague with regard to the roman times geomorphic evidence shows seemingly opposing results ranging from massive devastation to landscapes remaining stable for centuries unfortunately historical documentation is lacking in the following centuries historical records become more frequent and more precise and observations on extreme soil erosion events are prominent sometimes they can be clearly linked to geomorphic evidence in the field the advent of professional soil conservation took place in the late eighteenth century the first extensive essay on soil conservation known to the western world was published in germany in 1815 the rise of professional soil conservation occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries soil remediation and flood prevention programs were initiated but the long term success of these actions remains controversial in recent years increasing interest is to recover any traditional knowledge of soil management in order to incorporate it into modern soil conservation strategies the study shows that local and regional variations in natural settings cultural traditions and socioeconomic conditions played a major role for the dynamics and the rates of soil erosion on a long term perspective geomorphic evidence and historical sources can often complement each other but there should be also an awareness of new pitfalls when using them together

lake sediments erosion and landscape change during the holocene in britain and ireland abstract lakes are excellent repositories of air borne and especially stream borne materials it has long been recognised that lake sediments contain a strong record of catchment soils via the inputs of minerogenic and chemical erosional products to these may be added a variety of palaeoecological indicators including pollen fungi sphagnum leaves and faunal remains pollen analysis in particular enables land use change to be assessed over many millennia and demonstrates the landscape impacts of woodland clearance grazing and crop cultivation radiocarbon dating provides a chronology for environmental and agricultural change and acts as an indicator of erosion in its own right the use of such indicators to reconstruct past instances and patterns of erosion is demonstrated with reference mainly to 50 british and irish lake sites and especially those which have produced signals of erosion in the form of accelerated sediment accumulation and inversed or reversed sequences of radiocarbon dates during the mid and late holocene sites displaying even or decreased sedimentation through time are concentrated in northern and northwestern scotland and have either no clear signs of human impact or only so towards the latter part of the holocene this pattern probably reflects a combination of factors including low population densities thin soils and the sealing effect of blanket peat in contrast all sites with accelerated erosion have indications of anthropogenic impact this is often prior to levels of increased sedimentation showing a delay in system response while the spread of dates for the start of the rise in sediment accumulation spans 6200 940 bp three clusters are evident at 5295 4970 4530 4235 and 2980 2810 bp radiocarbon inversions mostly reversals are evident for 18 sites no obvious causal patterning is indicated and they probably demonstrate no more than the fact that catchment soils including peats around a particular site were pushed beyond an erosional threshold sufficient to age the sediments deposited within the lakes it is hoped that improvements in data quality will allow the refinement of such exercises in the future and that lakes will be valued as repositories of long term landscape sensitivity

quantitative aspects of carbonate leaching of soils with differing ages and climates abstract carbonate leaching rates in several soils in switzerland and in the lake constance region were calculated and related to landscape development the leached depth of the soil the carbonate content and the soil density profile are sensitive to soil age a first database of carbonate leaching and its relationship to soil age is presented a simple relationship between the amount of precipitation and carbonate losses was found water draining from calcareous soils from subarctic to temperate areas was usually close to equilibrium with calcite and dolomite thus the annual amount of rainfall and consequently the percolation are the most important factors in carbonate leaching the influence of temperature is comparatively low carbonate dissolution rates amounted to approximately 1 7 3 0 mol m 2 year 1 if they are referred normalised to 1000 mm soil water fluxes soils on coarse parent material may have slightly lower carbonate dissolution rates in the order of approximately 1 7 2 2 mol m 2 year 1 normalised to a 1000 mm output while other sites with smaller grain sizes had slightly higher dissolution rates 2 2 3 0 mol m 2 year 1

pre alpine mire sediments as a mirror of erosion soil formation and landscape evolution during the last 45 ka peat and lake sediments as well as a nearby soil catena were sampled to reconstruct the environmental history of a small infilled lake basin mire in the central alpine foreland of switzerland soil evolution is best regarded as discontinuous over time and conceptualised by progressive or regressive process phases we analysed the surrounding soils and used corresponding pedosignatures in the mire sediments to characterise notable phases of erosion and deposition we assumed that the mire sediments would reflect these phases that elemental composition major and minor compounds and rare earth elements rees would allow us to differentiate past processes and that progressive and regressive phases of soil development can be discerned although radiocarbon ages are equivocal it appears from pollen analyses that a lake was present here by c 45 ka bp after the retreat of the glacier from this area following the lgm continuous sedimentation occurred until a mire developed during pleistocene holocene transition this transition period was accompanied by more intense erosion as characterised by chemical signatures a stable phase developed between c 10 5 ka bp giving rise to progressive soil evolution between 5 and 4 ka bp evidence appears for several erosional phases predominantly detectable at the margin of the mire these erosion phases coupled with accumulation in the mire are even more evident after 4 ka bp and especially after 2 1 ka bp based on soil investigations elemental fluxes are detected along the slopes with distinct accumulations at the footslope evidence for anthropogenic influences and subsequent regressive soil formation phases appear in this pre alpine landscape about 5 ka bp neolithic early bronze age which appears to intensify after 2 1 ka bp roman period to present multi elemental signatures enabled us to identify the important geochemical processes that have occurred here together with radiocarbon and pollen analyses we placed these processes in a logical temporal context the use of lacustrine lake or mire sediments has great potential to decipher and detail the surrounding landscape history and soil evolution of this region of switzerland

3 d slip analyses of listric faults with ideal geometries abstract studying the kinematics of listric faults is of great importance in petroleum geology and seismicity the deformation related to listric faults differ from the planar fault plane case this study involves 3 d co ordinate geometry with spherical co ordinates to deduce the effective slip e s and the net slip n s of listric faults of three ideal geometries spherical paraboloid and ellipsoidal we perform 3d slip analyses on two types of listric faults type 1 and 2 previous authors have considered these shapes of fault planes in their modeling using these e s one can track material points before and after faulting similar to mukherjee 2019 applied on translational faults with planar fault planes the n s can be divided into a strike slip s n s and a dip slip component d n s this resolution being done on the listric fault plane itself n s s n s 2 d n s 2 0 5 this is unlike the planar fault plane case the purpose of 3d geometric analysis of listric faults could be in long run the restoration of rock blocks that underwent listric faulting

pastoralism increased vulnerability of a subalpine catchment to flood hazard through changing soil properties abstract soil erosion is strongly linked to both precipitation patterns and land use we examine the effects of erosion and its drivers i e human or and climate on soil evolution from the study of lacustrine archives in the northern french alps multi proxy analyses of the lake gers sediment sequence combined with the study of soils and rocks of its catchment allowed to reconstruct its evolution over the past 4 6 kyr this included 14c dating short lived radionuclides geochemistry loss on ignition grain size analyses as well as plant and mammal dna analyses a total of 127 instantaneous deposits were identified among the continuous sedimentation in the lake and 93 were interpreted as flood deposits erosion was quantified for the whole catchment considering both the continuous sedimentation and the flood deposit thicknesses the catchment is mainly formed by andesitic sandstones over which andosols and podzols can develop however low weathered materials from colluviation constitute the main input to the lake four main phases of changes in soil weathering were recorded by increases in k2o tio2 ratios associated with an increase in both erosion and flood frequency two phases were associated with climate cooling in the western alps from 2 65 to 2 5 and from 1 45 to 1 3 cal kyr bp the two others 1 9 1 75 and 0 9 0 4 cal kyr bp were triggered with deforestation with cow grazing during the roman period and with grazing of cows sheep and goats during the medieval period amplified by the onset of the little ice age the increase in erosion and flood frequency after 950 cal yr bp indicates substantial damages to soils of the catchment including increase of their erodibility over the last millennia

lake bourget regional erosion patterns reconstruction reveals holocene nw european alps soil evolution and paleohydrology abstract two well dated ca holocene long sedimentary sequences from deepest parts of lake bourget provide new insights onto the evolution of erosion patterns at a regional scale in nw european alps the combination of high resolution geochemistry xrf core scanning calibrated by 150 punctual measurements and isotope geochemistry nd of the terrigenous fraction permitted the reconstruction not only of the intensity but also the type physical erosion vs chemical weathering and the location prealpine massifs vs high crystalline massifs of dominant erosion processes those data point the persistency of weak erosion fluxes from 9600 to 5500 cal bp due both to a dry climate and the growing sheltering effect of soils that rapidly progressed between 9600 and 8000 cal bp soils then reached a steady state before being destabilised around 4400 cal bp probably in response to human impact the human impact then reached a sufficient intensity to change erosion patterns at a regional scale but did not result in a significant increase of the regional terrigenous flux the following enhancement of erosion processes occurred around 2700 cal bp it was first paced by changing climatic conditions but probably reinforced by human impact during late iron age antiquity period over the long term trend the lake bourget record pinpoints an evolution of paleohydrological conditions in the alps dominated by dry conditions from 9500 to 4400 cal bp and a subsequent drift toward wetter conditions that culminated during the so called little ice age ca 1350 1900 ad in such a context the current dry conditions in european alps appear out of trend at high resolution 17 periods of enhanced hydrological activity highlight the rapid climatic changes that are typical of the holocene

progressive and regressive soil evolution phases in the anthropocene soils have a substantial role in the environment because they provide several ecosystem services such as food supply or carbon storage agricultural practices can modify soil properties and soil evolution processes hence threatening these services these modifications are poorly studied and the resilience adaptation times of soils to disruptions are unknown here we study the evolution of pedogenetic processes and soil evolution phases progressive or regressive in response to human induced erosion from a 4000 year lake sediment sequence lake la thuile french alps erosion in this small lake catchment in the montane area is quantified from the terrigenous sediments that were trapped in the lake and compared to the soil formation rate to access this quantification soil processes evolution are deciphered from soil and sediment geochemistry comparison over the last 4000 years first impacts on soils are recorded at approximately 1600 yr cal bp with the erosion of surface horizons exceeding 10 t km 2 yr 1 increasingly deep horizons were eroded with erosion accentuation during the higher middle ages 1400 850 yr cal bp reaching 1000 t km 2 yr 1 and leading to the remobilization of carbonated and poorly weathered material hence rejuvenating soil development erosion exceeded the soil formation rate and constituted a regression in the development of soils the tolerable erosion limit is thus defined for erosion from 25 to 30 t km 2 yr 1 beyond this limit the sustainability of the agroecosystem is limited and ecosystem services decrease afterwards pedogenesis evolved again from progressive 700 300 yr cal bp to regressive 300 yr cal bp today phases erosion was less important during the last 700 years than during the middle ages but with the same weathering stages indicating that soils were deeply affected during the middle age and have yet not recovered our results highlight the importance of the human factor in the pedogenesis over last millennia and suggest that the studied agro ecosystem entered the anthropocene 1400 years ago

stratosphere troposphere transport in a numerical simulation of midlatitude convection 1 the transport of stratospheric air deep into the troposphere via convection is investigated numerically using the uk met office unified model a convective system that formed on 27 june 2004 near southeast england in the vicinity an upper level potential vorticity anomaly and a lowered tropopause provides the basis for analysis transport is diagnosed using a stratospheric tracer that can either be passed through or withheld from the model s convective parameterization scheme three simulations are performed at increasingly finer resolutions with horizontal grid lengths of 12 4 and 1 km in the 12 and 4 km simulations tracer is transported deeply into the troposphere by the parameterized convection in the 1 km simulation for which the convective parameterization is disengaged deep transport is still accomplished but with a much smaller magnitude however the 1 km simulation resolves stirring along the tropopause that does not exist in the coarser simulations in all three simulations the concentration of the deeply transported tracer is small three orders of magnitude less than that of the shallow transport near the tropopause most likely because of the efficient dilution of parcels in the lower troposphere

soil formation rates on silicate parent material in alpine environments different approaches different results abstract high mountain soils develop in particularly sensitive environments consequently deciphering and predicting what drives the rates of soil formation in such environments are a major challenge in terms of soil production or formation from chemical weathering the predominating perception for high mountain soils and cold environments is often that the chemical weathering portion of soil development is temperature inhibited often to the point of non occurrence several concepts exist to determine long term rates of soil formation and development we present three different approaches 1 quantification of soil formation from minimally eroded soils of known age using chronosequences known surface age and soil thickness sast 2 determination of soil residence times srt and production rates through chemical weathering using un stable isotopes e g 230 th 234 u activity ratios and 3 a steady state approach using cosmogenic isotopes e g 10 be for each method data from different climate zones and particularly from high mountains alpine environment are compared the sast and steady state approach give quite similar results for alpine environments european alps and the wind river range rocky mountains usa using the srt approach soil formation rates in mountain areas but having a temperate climate do not differ greatly from the sast and steady state approaches independent of the chosen approach the results seem moderately comparable soil formation rates in high mountain areas alpine climate range from very low to extremely high values and show a clear decreasing tendency with time very young soils have up to 3 4 orders of magnitude higher rates of development than old soils 10 5 to 10 6 yr this apparently is a result of kinetic limits on weathering in regions having young surfaces and supply limits to weathering on old surfaces due to the requirement for chemical weathering to occur soil production rates cannot be infinitely high consequently a speed limit must exist in the literature this limit has been set at about 320 to 450 t km 2 a our results from the sast approach show however that in alpine areas soil formation easily reaches rates of up to 800 2000 t km 2 a these data are consistent with previous studies in mountain regions demonstrating that particularly young soils intensively weather even under continuous seasonal snowpack and thus that the concept of temperature controlled soil development soil forming intervals in alpine regions must be reconsidered

a 2500 year record of natural and anthropogenic soil erosion in south greenland the environmental impact of the norse landnam in greenland has been studied extensively but to date no study has quantified the soil erosion that norse agricultural practices are believed to have caused to resolve this problem a high resolution sedimentary record from lake igaliku in south greenland is used to quantitatively reconstruct 2500 years of soil erosion driven by climate and historical land use an accurate chronology allows for the estimation of detritic fluxes and their uncertainties land clearance and the introduction of grazing livestock by the norse around 1010 ad caused an acceleration of soil erosion up to 8 mm century in 1180 ad which is two fold higher than the natural pre landnam background from 1335 ad to the end of the norse eastern settlement in the mid fifteenth century the vegetation began to recover from initial disturbance and soil erosion decreased after an initial phase of modern sheep breeding similar to the medieval one the mechanization of agriculture in the 1980s caused an unprecedented soil erosion rate of up to 21 mm century five times the pre anthropogenic levels independently a suite of biological and geochemical proxies including ti and diatom concentrations c n ratio 13c and 15n of organic matter confirm that the medieval and modern anthropogenic erosion far exceeds any natural erosion over the last 2500 years our findings question the veracity of the catastrophic scenario of overgrazing and land degradation considered to have been the major factor responsible for norse settlement demise they also shed light on the sustainability of modern practices and their consequences for the future of agriculture in greenland

rates and spatial variations of soil erosion in europe a study based on erosion plot data an extensive database of short to medium term erosion rates as measured on erosion plots in europe under natural rainfall was compiled from the literature statistical analysis confirmed the dominant influence of land use and cover on soil erosion rates sheet and rill erosion rates are highest on bare soil vineyards show the second highest soil losses followed by other arable lands spring crops orchards and winter crops a land with a permanent vegetation cover shrubs grassland and forest is characterised by soil losses which are generally more than an order of magnitude lower than those on arable land disturbance of permanent vegetation by fire leads to momentarily higher erosion rates but rates are still lower than those measured on arable land we also noticed important regional differences in erosion rates erosion rates are generally much lower in the mediterranean as compared to other areas in europe this is mainly attributed to the high soil stoniness in the mediterranean measured erosion rates on arable and bare land were related to topography slope steepness and length and soil texture while this was not the case for plots with a permanent land cover we attribute this to a fundamental difference in runoff generation and sediment transfer according to land cover types on the basis of these results we calculated mean sheet and rill erosion rates for the european area covered by the corine database estimated rill and interrill erosion rates are ca 1 2 t ha 1 year for the whole corine area and ca 3 6 t ha 1 year 1 for arable land these estimates are much lower than some earlier estimates which were based on the erroneous extrapolation of small datasets high erosion rates occur in areas dominated by vineyards the hilly loess areas in west and central europe and the agricultural areas located in the piedmont areas of the major european mountain ranges c 2010 elsevier b v all rights reserved