Genesis of pedons with discontinuous argillic horizons in the Holocene loess mantle of the southern Pampean landscape, Argentina

Soil development in the plain landscape of the southern Argentinean Pampa is related to pulses of aeolian accretion of calcareous loess during the Holocene epoch. Such plain relief is associated with landform stability that favors pedogenesis. In some sectors of the Holocene loess mantle, detailed soil surveys show a great variability of soil morphology in short distances (<7 m), such that pedons with Bt horizon (Ap-Bt-C-2Ckm) coexist with pedons with an AC horizon (Ap-AC-C-2Ckm) in a plain landscape, within identical loess parent material over a tosca layer (2Ckm-calcrete-petrocalcic horizon), and in a similar pedoclimate. This article studies the origin of this spatial variation. Loess parent materials directly overlie the relic tosca layer, exhumed after erosion of preexisting soils of the Late Pleistocene. The contrast in soil morphology between the petrocalcic horizon and the overlying Holocene soils reflects the effect of polygenesis. The complex soil spatial distribution pattern over the tosca layer appears unrelated to its paleomicrotopography, because soils with Bt horizons are identified in positive and depressed microlandforms of the tosca. The absence of Bt horizons might be caused by formerly intense biological activity related to a stable pattern of two natural vegetation covers or a surface paleomicrotopography that supported distinct vegetation types depending on the soil moisture in each paleomicrolandform.