Genetic features of soils on marine sands and their windblown derivatives on the White Sea coast (the Kola Peninsula)

The Quaternary deposits on the Tersk coast of the White Sea are represented by marine deposits (the Tersk sands) enriched in the sea-sorted eluvium of the red Tersk sandstone. These deposits and the soils developed from them are characterized by the predominance of the fine sand fraction and the absence of gravel and the coarser fractions. The sediments derived from the red Tersk sandstone have an impoverished chemical composition (the silica content reaches 75–80%). The iron-illuvial podzols developed from them are characterized by the slightly pronounced differentiation of the main oxides and by the eluvial-illuvial redistribution of the amorphous Al and Fe compounds. Sandy soils—psammozems—with undifferentiated soil profiles are developed from windblown sands subjected to afforestation and from coastal marine sands under a relatively thin natural plant cover. Iron-illuvial podzols buried under a thin sand layer preserve the Al-Fe-humus type of the profile differentiation. In the recently deposited sand layer, the eluvial-illuvial redistribution of the chemical elements is absent.