Spatial variation of soil development in a high Arctic soil landscape: Truelove Lowland, Devon Island, Nunavut, Canada

Soil variability on a raised beach under conditions of continuous permafrost in the Truelove Lowland is controlled by a number of environmental factors operating at different scales. At the scale of the raised beach, the soil development is strongly controlled by slope conditions, resulting in the formation of a catena. Differences in the structure and composition of the beach materials, together with the prevailing soil hydrothermal regime and vegetative cover, produce a series of discrete soil zones on these beaches in which Regosolic Static Cryosols, Brunisolic Eutric Static Cryosols, Brunisolic Eutric Turbic Cryosols and Gleysolic Turbic Cryosols are associated with the raised beach crest, upper foreslope, lower foreslope and meadow zones respectively. Multivariate statistical analyses of soil properties sampled using a 4 x 4 m sampling grid, stratified according to depth, reveals significant soil variability within the zones of the catena. At this scale, small-scale changes in topography, periglacial processes and soil parent materials create specialized niches for plant growth and pedogenic processes, resulting in significant soil variability. Progressive decarbonation of the calcareous beach materials; the humification and cryoturbation of organic materials; the pedotranslocation of silts, solutes and exchangeable cations, both downprofile and downslope; together with very localized acid chelation, brunification and oxidation-reduction combine to produce a complex mosaic of soil conditions that can be mapped. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.