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Progressive and Regressive Pedogenesis and Complex Soil Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Jonathan D. Phillips
Jonathan D. Phillips*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina 27858-4353
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Abstract

The simultaneous operation of regressive and progressive pedogenetic pathways raises the possibility that soil evolution may exhibit patterns far richer and more complex than increasing development over time. This possibility is explored via a numerical model incorporating the relative rates of progressive and regressive pedogenesis and feedbacks between these rates and the degree of soil development. This model may exhibit deterministic chaos and sensitive dependence on initial conditions with realistic parameter values. Variations in profile development in a region of the North Carolina Coastal Plain where soil-forming factors are relatively constant is consistent with deterministic chaos. Chaotic soil evolution suggests that soil development may reflect the interplay between progressive and regressive soil-forming processes in addition to—or instead of—the age of a surface or deposit. The former may produce a state of development which is unique to a particular time, sensitively dependent on the (unknown) initial conditions, and not simply related to age. Soils and their genetic signatures as indicators of relative ages and Quaternary environments may need to be reinterpreted in this light.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , September 1993 , pp. 169 - 176
Copyright
University of Washington

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