Evidence of short-term clay evolution in soils under human impact

Clay minerals are still often considered as stable in soils over a century to millennium time scale despite a few examples of rapid evolution. Indeed, recent advances in X-ray diffraction pattern treatment combined with studies of soil sequences, demonstrated that changes in clay mineralogy were faster than commonly thought. In this article we present the evidence for rapid clay evolution based on X-ray diffraction pattern decomposition of soil samples collected along land-use sequences chosen to represent the main route of clay evolution in temperate soils (interlayer ion exchanges, weathering and transport).