Andosols of the East Carpathian volcanic range

摘要

According to WRB (World Reference Base for Soil Resources)[39] andosols are dark soils with high organic matter content formedon young volcanic rocks. Their characteristics are determined primarilyby allophanes, imogolite, ferrihydrite and Al/Fe-humus complexes. Theirmacro-structure is very loose with low value for volume mass, thixotropy,high cation exchange capacity and phosphorous retaining capacity arecharacteristic for them.Geographical distribution, upper and lower limits of andosols in Romaniaare still to be made clear. Limited publications give controversialdata in relation to the latter. Their appearance on maps published inrecent years is controversial and hard to interpret especially in the casesof the Harghita and the Gurghiu Mountains.According to Romanian pedological literature andosols can be foundabove 1200 m a.s.l., however, on soil maps of the scale 1:200.000 [35, 36,37] covering the C?alimani-Gurghiu-Harghita volcanic chain as well theyextend up to only 1500 m.