A climosequence of soils from tuffs on slopes of an extinct volcano in Southern Italy

Volcanic soils: their nature and significance for archaeology

“…Inceptisols and Spodosols occur in tephra in New Zealand (Parfitt et al 1983;Molloy 1993). On Mt Vulture in southern Italy, Andisols in Pleistocene tufts are replaced by Spodosols under fir forest above 1200m (Lulli & Bidini 1980). In drier conditions on the lower slopes of the same volcano, Mollisols (dark soils of grasslands) and Alfisols (with clay-enriched subsoils; of medium to high base saturation), respectively, occur where soils are more base rich and where layer clays have been eluviated to give distinct argillic horizons.…”

“…The melanic epipedon, therefore, does not normally form, but dark, humus-rich mollic (well structured with high base saturation) or umbric (as mollic, but with low base saturation) epipedons occur (e.g. Lulli & Bidini 1980). Ferrihydrite weathered from rock crystallizes in well-drained environments to goethite or hematite, which colour A and particularly B horizons.…”

Modelling pedogenization of zeolitized tuff: effects of water and phenolic substances on weathering rates of the Campanian Ignimbrite (yellow facies)

“…Several laboratory studies have been carried out on the weathering of single minerals (Huang & Keller, 1970, 1971, 1972Kodama & Schnitzer, 1973;Stillings & Brantley, 1995;White & Brantley 1995;Brantley & Stillings, 1996;Huertas et al, 1998Huertas et al, , 1999Zhang et al, 1996;Silber et al, 1999;Zhang & Bloom, 1999;Hamilton et al, 2000Hamilton et al, , 2001Brantley, 2008), while fewer investigations have been carried out on the experimental alteration and transformation of the principal earth-crust rocks (Dixon & Weed, 1989;Stidson et al, 2002;Ganor et al, 2005;Neaman et al, 2005Neaman et al, , 2006Chae et al, 2006;Hausrath et al, 2009); special reference has been paid to magmatic rocks, notwithstanding their worldwide occurrence in volcanic districts as parent material of very fertile soils, although with some limitations (Goenadi & Tan, 1989;Lulli & Bidini, 1980;Lorenzoni et al, 1985;Bhattacharyya et al, 1992Bhattacharyya et al, , 1999Bhattacharyya et al, , 2006Ezzaïm et al, 1999a,b;Kimble et al, 2000;Shoji & Takahashi, 2002;Tazaki, 2006;Arnalds et al, 2007;Zakharikhina & Litvinenko, 2008). Indeed, very few papers deal with the chemical weathering of zeolites and of zeolite-bearing rocks (Buondonno et al, 2005…”