Subaqueous soils

These soils are formed from river, lake, and ocean sediments. Ponnamperuma (1972) uses soil terms to describe the uppermost layers of unconsolidated aqueous sediments for the following reasons  

This concept was adopted by pedologists and identifies these soils as subaqueous soils, which are permanently flooded soils that occur immediately below a water depth of 2.5 m. These soils have been mapped in an estuarine environment (Demas et al., 1996 Demas and Rabenhorst, 1999). The Natural Resource Conservation Service has amended the definition of soil to include sediments under as much as 2.5 m water (Soil Survey Staff, 1999). The justification used for including sediments of shallow water environments is that these sediments undergo soil-forming processes and are capable of supporting rooted plants, and meet the definition of soil according to the criteria defined in Soil Taxonomy. 

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Demas, G. R, M. C. Rabenhorst, and J. C. Stevenson. 1996. Subaqueous soils a pedological approach to the study of shallow-water habitats. Estuaries 19 229-237. 

In this chapter we recognize essentially two soil classes aerobic soils that are well drained and subjected to continued availability of oxygen, and peat that represents subaqueous deposits of vegetal matter subjected to an early oxidative stage of decomposition in upper layers but to an anaerobic stage of decomposition in the lower layers. Differences have been noted in the composition of humic substances in both of these soil classes (Kononova, 1966 Manskaya and Drozdova, 1968). Because of the differences in depositional environments, it is likely that different processes are operative in the formation of humin in these two classes of sediment. 

Jacobs PH (2003) Monitoring of subaqueous depots with active barrier systems (SUBAD-ABS) for contaminated dredged material using dialysis sampler and DGTprobes. J Soils Sediments 3 100-107. 

Jacobs PH and Forstner U (2001) Managing contaminated sediments. IV Subaqueous storage and capping of dredged matericd. J Soils Sediments 1 205-212. 

Rock slumps, rock block slides, slow earth flows, soil lateral spreads, rapid soil flows, subaqueous landslides ... 

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