Mineralogical Transformations and Soil Development in Shale Across a Latitudinal Climosequence

To investigate factors controlling soil formation, we established a climosequence as part of the Susquehanna-Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory (SSHCZO) in central Pennsylvania, USA. Sites were located on organic matter-poor, iron-rich Silurian-aged shale in Wales, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Puerto Rico, although this last site is underlain by a younger shale. Across the climosequence, mean annual temperature (MAT) increases from 7 to 24°C and mean annual precipitation (MAP) ranges from 100 to 250 cm. Variations in soil characteristics along the climosequence, including depth, morphology, particle-size distribution, geochemistry, and bulk and clay mineralogy, were characterized to investigate the role of climate in controlling mineral transformations and soil formation. Overall, soil horizonation, depth, clay content, and chemical depletion increase with increasing temperature and precipitation, consistent with enhanced soil development and weathering processes in warmer and wetter locations. Secondary minerals are present at higher concentrations at the warmest sites of the climosequence; kaolinite increases from \u3c5% at northern sites in Wales and Pennsylvania to 30% in Puerto Rico. The deepest observed weathering reaction is plagioclase feldspar dissolution followed by the transformation of chlorite and illite to vermiculite and hydroxy-interlayered vermiculite. Plagioclase, although constituting \u3c12% of the initial shale mineralogy, may be the profile initiating reaction that begins shale bedrock transformation to weathered regolith. Weathering of the more abundant chlorite and illite minerals (∼70% of initial mineralogy), however, are more likely controlling regolith thickness. Climate appears to play a central role in driving soil formation and mineral weathering reactions across the climosequence

Descriptions of New Cynipidae in the Collection of the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History

Gall-fly.— Female.—Head, thorax, and scutellum black; mandibles, antennae, legs, and abdomen yellow-rufous. Length, 3 mm. Head black, shining, face coarsely striate and sparsely haired, frontal carina rather prominent and striate, a deep groove extending up on the front, from between the antennae, containing the middle ocellus at its upper end, the ridges or carina on either side of the groove finely aciculate, the outer ocelli borne on the summit of the vertex, the latter shining and having a few punctures in the vicinity of the ocelli; occiput aciculate. Thorax: collar covered with a growth of rather long hair, mesothorax black, polished, and covered with a network of microscopic depressed lines, humeri coarsely aciculate or wrinkled, pleurae finely aciculate and rufous in color.Ope

Accession catalogue

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Accession catalogue

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Accessions catalogue: western slope fruit investigations, Grand Junction, Colo.

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