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Gelisols are an order in USDA soil taxonomy. They are soils of very cold climates which are defined as containing permafrost within two meters (6 ft 7 in) of the soil surface. The word "Gelisol" comes from the Latin gelare meaning "to freeze", a reference to the process of cryoturbation that occurs from the alternating thawing and freezing ...
In gelisols (permafrost soils), cryoturbation (frost churning) refers to the mixing of materials from various horizons of the soil down to the bedrock due to freezing and thawing. Cryoturbation occurs to varying degrees in most gelisols.
USDA soil taxonomy (ST) developed by the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Cooperative Soil Survey provides an elaborate classification of soil types according to several parameters (most commonly their properties) and in several levels: Order, Suborder, Great Group, Subgroup, Family, and Series.
Distribution of Gleysols. A gleysol or gley soil is a hydric soil that unless drained is saturated with groundwater for long enough to develop a characteristic gleyic colour pattern.
In the US, Gelisols occur only in parts of Alaska; they are characterized by having permafrost within 100 cm of the surface. Histosols are organic soils lacking permafrost within 100 cm of the surface; they are characteristically formed on wet sites, e.g. bogs, some fens and some muskeg areas. Some Histosols have been drained, especially to ...
Cryoturbation is the dominant force operating in the active layer, and tends to make it generally uniform in composition throughout. However, variation in the composition of soils due to differences in parent rock are very marked in permafrost regions due to the low rate of weathering in the very cold climate.
Photograph taken 21 March 2010 in Norwich, Vermont. Frost heaving (or a frost heave) is an upwards swelling of soil during freezing conditions caused by an increasing presence of ice as it grows towards the surface, upwards from the depth in the soil where freezing temperatures have penetrated into the soil (the freezing front or freezing boundary).
The land area of Canada (excluding inland waters) is approximately 9,180,000 km 2, of which about 1,375,000 km 2 (15%) is rock land. The remainder is classified according to the Canadian System of Soil Classification.