Influence of Paleoclimatic Environment on Soil Magnetic Susceptibility

The bioclimatic environment of soil formation has significant effects on the magnetic properties of soils. At this work, we compare the magnetic susceptibility between different ancient soil profiles and the modern upper layer of kurgans with predominantly sandy soil of different particle size distribution. The values of soil magnetic susceptibility on Kremenye kurgans are one to three orders of magnitude lower than those at Stepnoye and Solonchanka kurgans. Although, the magnetic susceptibility profile shows that ancient 100 and 1600-year-old soils are markedly different from the topsoil of kurgans. The 800-year-old soil profile does not provide any valuable information about the soil profile formation, but the Bronze Age buried soil profile of Stepnoye settlement and kurgan was interlayered with sandy soil with different particle size distribution; the magnetic susceptibility in the cultural layer was high. Using magnetic susceptibility measuring, we can obtain express characteristics of high-magnetic Fe-containing soil minerals amount reflected in the forming environment of the soils. The paleosoil magnetic properties can be interpreted only by a wide range of methods focusing on traditional physical and chemical peculiarities of soils based on the various microbiological characteristics of buried soils.