Morphological Structure and Some Physicochemical Properties of Soils in West Svalbard Maritime Cryogenic Landscapes

The Svalbard Archipelago is a territory with unique landscape, geological, and biological diversity facing the risk of degradation resulting from air temperature dynamics and shrinking permafrost area and thickness. In addition, on Svalbard mining for coal, non-ferrous metals, and hydrocarbons continues, and tourist numbers are growing year on year. This inevitably leads to intensified transformation processes in the local Arctic ecosystems. In 2024, field studies of soils and natural waters of West Svalbard cryogenic landscapes were conducted around Grønfjord Bay (Barentsburg) and Colesbay (Colesbay polar station). Nineteen soil profiles were described and classified in eight types. Soils were described according to the 2008 Russian Soils Classification and Diagnostics. Soil pits studies were carried out following the landscape geochemical (catenar) principle. In the soil cover structure of the elevated geomorphological levels—marine terraces I and II (including those partially covered by deluvial trains)—gleyic cryozems and humified petrozems dominate. Soil surfaces on these levels are complicated by a nanopolygonal cryogenic microrelief. Soil diversity of lower geomorphological levels, namely, river floodplains and low (periodically flooded) accumulative marine coasts, is represented by pelozems, petrozems, and sulfide solonchaks developing in conditions where the bedrock is near the surface and there is heavy exposure to seawater. Most of the studied natural waters are characterized by low redox potential values of 100–250 mV, and their acidity varies widely from 6.5 to 9.5. Mineral peaty gleysols, which develop in lowlands subject to periodic flooding by seawater, have the most alkaline reaction and combine negative redox potential values (down to –3 mV) with high mineralization (within the range of 3–5 g/L). The soils of these landscapes show the greatest promise for studying lateral migration of substances in the catenas of the maritime cryogenic landscapes of Svalbard, due to the contrasting lateral geochemical barriers that can form there.