Mineralogy and Weathering of Antarctic Cryosols

Many soil researchers of the Antarctic (e.g., O’Brien, 1979; Campbell and Claridge, 1987; Bockheim and Ugolini, 1990) hold that no considerable chemical weathering and no new formation of minerals has taken place in soils of the Antarctic Desert and Tundra. They describe intensive changes in soil condition from cryoturbation and cryoclastic weathering but do not recognize a stronger influence of chemical weathering. However, pedologists from Central Europe assume that intensive cryoclastic weathering facilitates easier chemical weathering at low temperatures and thus allows a new formation of minerals (Kopp and Kowalkowski, 1990). Some even assume that, in many soils of Central Europe, brownification and clay formation mainly occurred under periglacial conditions (Kowalkowski and Borzyskowiski, 1973; Kopp et al., 1982).