The main soil types of Eurasia: their description and soil characteristics

Eurasia has the best soil types. There are chernozems and many other types of soils. There are also extensive pastures and lands on which various types of cultivated plants are grown. Eurasia is characterized by complex relief. Mountain systems strongly influence the flat relief, redistributing precipitation and air currents. Below is a list of the main soil types of Eurasia, depending on the belt.

Polar belt

It contains the following ground areas:

• polar desert soils - located in the north and localized on Severnaya Zemlya, Svalbard;
• arcto-tundra lands - located to the south;
• tundra or gley soils - extend in the form of a continuous elongated strip across the mainland.

Tundra zones are moving south in the oceanic sectors of the continents, due to an increase in air humidity. Under conditions of high humidity and low temperatures, moisture transpiration is disturbed. This causes physiological dryness. At the same time, woody vegetation disappears. The drier the air, the further north the forest vegetation moves and the tundra zone recedes.

Boreal belt

In the wettest oceanic zones, the soils of the southern tundra are replaced by small patches of subarctic meadows and light forests. They are associated with soddy subarctic coarse-humus and soddy-peaty lands. In Northern Europe, such lands are found in the flat areas of Iceland, on the Atlantic coast of Northern Norway.

Most of the boreal strip is occupied by forests. This zone is divided into several sectors, which contain podzolic and taiga-frozen lands. In Eurasia, the largest amount of permafrost soils is found in Central Siberia.

Subboreal Belt

This belt is distinguished by a variety of soils and a complex structure. The following sectors are distinguished here:

• inland - contains many latitudinal soil zones that follow each other from north to south;
• symmetric oceanic - characterized by uniform soil cover;
• transitional from inland to east - here a series of inland sections changes latitudinal direction to meridional direction.

The inland sector is characterized by the presence of gray forest soils and chernozems. Also here are gray-brown, chestnut, desert-steppe soils. They form concentric arcs that open wide towards the south.

The area of gray forest soils located in broad-leaved and small-leaved forests is very narrow and broken. It is expressed exclusively in the inland sector.

Subtropical belt

It is distinguished by the absence of pronounced latitudinal soil areas, except for the vast zone of subtropical deserts and their characteristic desert lands. They occupy the entire continental part of the continent. The soil cover and zonation in the eastern and western oceanic sectors are very different.

Eastern monsoons influence the eastern oceanic region. In a humid subtropical climate, red and yellow soils are formed here. They do not form a noticeable latitudinal or meridional zone. Such lands are localized on the coastal plains. They also occupy intermountain areas and the low mountains of Nanling. In addition, these soils are localized in the southern islands of Yatyun and Yunnan-Guizhou Highlands.

To the west, the zones of localization of red and yellow soils are replaced by meridional soil zones. Such structures are present in the subtropical belt on the loess plateaus in China, but here the ground areas do not form clearly defined meridional zones.

The western oceanic sector has a Mediterranean climate. It is characterized by high dryness in summer and humidity in winter. Taking into account the degree of moisture, the zones of distribution of brown lands are replaced by gray soils.

Tropical belt

The territory of the Arabian Peninsula falls on the area of localization of deserts. The zonal soil types include brown desert lands. In Indochina, Hindustan, on the Malay Archipelago there are such sites:

• reddish-brown lands of desert savannas;
• brown-red soils of xerophytic rainforests;
• red-brown lands of dry savannas;
• red-yellow ferralite soils of permanent tropical rainforests.

Red-yellow ferralitic soils of the equator's humid forests are found in humid island areas. At the same time, the eastern shores of Indochina reach the northern tropic. Just as far north, the red and red-brown soils of the savannas are shifting, which occupy the drier zones of the interior plains.

Eurasia is characterized by different types of soils. They differ in structure and fertility. Many of the soils can be used in agriculture.

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