Editorial preface to special issue: Palaeosols in the sedimentary record: Implications for understanding the depositional processes, sedimentary architecture and the palaeoenvironment

Palaeosols are common in terrestrial successions from the Archean to the Holocene, locally dominating entire stratigraphic sections. The types of palaeosols developed are influenced by four key palaeoenvironmental controls (atmosphere, biosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere) on time scales ranging from hundreds to potentially millions of years. As a result, palaeosols may preserve a valuable record of palaeoclimate, palaeotopography, palaeobiology, palaeodepositional processes, and their changes over time. The integrated study of palaeosols in their depositional context improves knowledge of the dynamic evolution of terrestrial sedimentary successions, and enables prediction of the future behaviour of landscapes. This special issue is divided into two themes and comprises 17 papers that address the wider significance of palaeosols. The first theme exclusively considers the characteristics of palaeosols and uses them as proxies for palaeoenvironmental conditions, especially palaeoclimate factors. Some keys findings include (i) proposals for new climofunctions, based on modern soils with pedogenic carbonate, (ii) critical observations on the chemical pre-treatment of palaeosol samples after application of climofunctions and (iii) climate variations identified by mineralogical, macroscopic and micromorphological evidence in a succession of palaeosol profiles. The second theme considers palaeosols as a tool to understand the relationships between sedimentation and pedogenesis, and its application to define depositional sedimentary architecture and aid sequence stratigraphic interpretations. Some key findings address (i) how tectonic or climatic factors may act to minimise the influence of sea level variations on the characteristics of the palaeosols, and (ii) the importance of understanding lateral variations in the palaeosol profiles before extrapolating results extracted from a single palaeosol profile to the basin scale. As such this special issue highlights the great value of palaeopedology for academic and applied knowledge.