Proposal for a new diagnostic horizon for WRB Anthrosols

To investigate man's role in the creation and evolution of soils in areas of large scale farming, and toinvestigate the main morpho-descriptive aspects of the related soils, a survey was carried out in southeastern Sicily, Italy, where, as common to other regions of the Mediterranean basin, there are wide areas withanthropogenic soils due to large scale farming activity.The complex genesis pattern of these anthropogenic soils, which shows a double sequence of man-madehorizons, sideways oriented to the soil surface, does not allow their classification as Technosols, because theircomposition is not dominated or strongly influenced by artefacts or human-made materials as is the case forTechnosols.According to the principles of the WRB (World Reference Base for Soil Resources), these soils should beregarded as being within the Anthrosols reference soil group (RSG). For their classification, the “geomiscic”horizon, not listed among the diagnostic horizons of the WRB, is proposed as a new diagnostic horizon forthe Anthrosols RSG. The geomiscic horizon can be succinctly defined as “a horizon that develops when alayer, at least 30 cm thick of different kinds of earthy materials, is added to the soil using earthmovingequipment. For farming purposes this layer is subsequently deeply mixed into the underlying soil usingheavy machinery. Its colour is related to the source materials and generally the layer is not parallel to thesurface of the soil”