Transformation of the Bryansk paleosol in microdepressions in the center of the East European forest-steppe during the maximum of valdai glaciation and in the Holocene

Abstract

Recent and Late Pleistocene soils of the central forest-steppe in the East European Plain have been studied. The main objective of the work is to reveal changes in the properties of the Bryansk paleosol (final phase of MIS 3), one of the most important geosols of the Late Pleistocene. These changes could be induced by cryogenesis during the Valdai glaciation maximum (MIS 2) and by the Holocene pedogenesis (MIS 1) under different conditions of the modern microtopography. We have studied the catena of Holocene soils underlain by the Bryansk paleosol within a small closed depression in the Kazatskaya Steppe of the V.V. Alekhin Central Chernozemic Biospheric Reserve in Kursk oblast