In this talk, we will present new insights and research directions, on the development and spatial variability of the volcanic soils of the Golan Heights plateau.
The volcanic soils of the Golan Heights plateau, in northern Israel, are underlaid by basaltic rocks ranging in age from ~5.5 to 0.1 Ma. Topographic position, field evidence and morphology, indicate that most of these soils formed in-situ through the weathering of the basaltic bedrock. While primarily basaltic in origin, the contribution of allochthonous aeolian sediments to the soils has long been recognized, primarily through the presence of quartz grains, characteristic of the regional dust.
Using geochemical mass balance calculations, we recently demonstrated that not only are the soil ages decoupled from the ages of the underlying basalts, they represent up to a few thousand years of soil production, at most. This time frame is orders of magnitude shorter than the basalt age, and challenges the prevalent assumption that these soils form a chronosequence. Our findings further suggest that erosion is a significant factor controlling soil formation and accumulation on the plateau, despite the generally flat morphology of the Golan Heights. These results raise new questions regarding the primary controls on soil formation and development on the plateau, the mechanism driving soil erosion, and the factors governing the transition between soil-mantled and rock landscape.
We address these questions through field investigation of the soils and landscape, and mineralogical and geochemical analyses. In this talk, we will present new findings from fieldwork and geochemical analyses, that provide deeper insights into soil formation, turnover rates, soils maturity and aeolian dust contribution to these soils. These results contribute to a broader understanding of soil evolution in volcanic landscapes and have implications for interpreting soil age, stability, and landscape dynamics in similar environments.