ИСТИНА

Soils form under the direct influence of climatic parameters, and they retain environmental information in their features (soil memory: Targulian and Goryachkin, 2008). Thus, buried soils provide an excellent opportunity to reconstruct paleoenvironments preceding burial. The area of the lower Volga basin experienced considerable changes due to fluctuations in Caspian Sea level together with other responses to glacial-interglacial cycling in the Quaternary. Numerous horizons of buried soils have been recorded in sedimentary sequences, and they have been used for stratigraphic correlations and paleogeomorphic reconstructions in the area (Konstantinov et al., 2016). But the study of paleosols as a paleoenvironmental proxy has not been performed until now. The study of the 20 m exposure on the terrace in the middle stream of the Akhtuba River provides a unique opportunity to reveal the complex interplay among several factors: Caspian Sea level cycling, related fluctuations in fluvial activity, continental (aeolian) sedimentation, the local environment of the Akhtuba River valley, and the pedogenetic response to environmental and geomorphic changes.