Soils of Queen Maud Land

Soils of East Antarctic oasis: interplay of organisms and mineral components at microscale

“…The predominant ice-free areas are the Mühlig-Hoffmann and Wohlthat Mountains (Fimbulheimen), the Sør Rondane Mountains, each one comprised of 900 km 2 , Queen Fabiola Mountains (200 km 2 ), however the mountains area and nunataks are the least studied in terms of pedology. The most studied areas of QML in terms of soils include the Sør Rondane Mountains and Schirmacher Oasis (35 km 2 ) (Zazovskaya et al, 2015). Schirmacher Oasis is located in the central part of the QML along the Princess Astrid Coast 90 km south of the Lazarev Sea ( Figure 2).…”

“…The attempts were made to integrate the soil information on the continental scale (Bockheim and Ugolini, 1990;Balks et al, 2013) as well as to compare Antarctic and Arctic soil mantles (Tedrow, 1991). In the early 2000s, a team of Russian soil scientists began studying soils near Russian Research Stations within the coastal region of East Antarctica, on some nunataks, in Wohlthat Mountains (Queen Maud Land) and barely accessible parts of West Antarctica (Abakumov, 2010;Gilichinsky et al, 2010;Goryachkin et al, 2012;Abakumov et al, 2013;Lupachev and Abakumov, 2013;Mergelov, 2014;Zazovskaya et al, 2015Zazovskaya et al, , 2017. The new data improved the understanding of the weathering and soil formation processes under extreme conditions, that was reflected in the latest international monograph on Antarctic soils (Bockheim, 2015).…”

“…Among scientific problems still to be solved, soil organic matter (SOM) formation and development of organoprofiles recently have drawn attention in the context of the study of the carbon cycle on the continent. Recent research has demonstrated unexpectedly considerable accumulation of organic carbon in the primitive soils of Antarctic oasis with relatively large residence times (estimated by radiocarbon dating of SOM) (Zazovskaya et al, 2015). The question arises about the particular form of SOM accumulation as well as the mechanisms of its formation and stabilization.…”

“…Pedogenesis under moss and lichen communities results in the formation of most developed soil profiles and major SOM accumulation in situ INTRODUCTION (without inputs of allochtonous organic material e.g. from pinguins and other birds) as in case of ornitogenic soils (Michel et al, 2006) in the Antarctic oasis (Zazovskaya et al, 2015). This puts forward a set of questions about the interplay of living organs of these primitive organisms as well as their post-mortem organic residues with the mineral components of the soil parent materials, resulting in their weathering and development of the organo-mineral surface horizons.…”

Diversity of Phototrophic Genes Suggests Multiple Bacteria May Be Able to Exploit Sunlight in Exposed Soils from the Sør Rondane Mountains, East Antarctica

“…Given the distance to the ocean (~200 km) and the extent of the surrounding ice cover, bacteria in exposed soils of the Sør Rondane Mountains, East Antarctica, are faced with very low availability of organic matter (Osanai et al, 2013; Zazovskaya et al, 2015; Tytgat et al, 2016) and might thus be expected to use alternative energy sources such as sunlight. During an initial survey using libraries of ~100 clones, phototrophy genes were investigated for the first time in this terrestrial Antarctic location (Tahon et al, 2016).…”