Inceptisols and Spodosols in Holocene age deposits in the Norra Storfjallet area of Northern Sweden (66 N) have a maximum radiocarbon age of 8000 yr BP. Above the present timberline (approximately 650 meters a.s.l.), Spodosols are found as relict paleopedologic features in topographic depressions up to elevations of approximately 900 m a.s.l.. These Spodosols formed under a dwarf birch-spruce forest during the Atlantic Chronozone when timberline reached to + 900 m a.s.l. During post-Atlantic time (<5000 yr BP), including both the sub-Boreal and sub-Atlantic chronozones, the colder and drier environment produced only Inceptisols and Entisols forming both in swells and swales, but with a weak pedogenic gradient insufficient to destroy the albic/spodic relict horizons. We have analyzed approximately 60 profiles ranging in age from a few hundred to 8000 yr. Approximately 10 profiles are radiocarbon dated, so that maximum ages are known and time lines are available for modelling mineral transformations and elemental transfers down profile.

W.C. Mahaney
Geomorphology and Pedology Laboratory
York University
Atkinson College
4700 Keele St.
North York, Ontario, Canada, M3J1P3
E-mail: bmahaney@yorku.ca