Morphological, mineralogical, and chemical characteristics of five soil profiles derived from different parent materials have been studied on the Ellef Ringnes Island, Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The aim was to investigate weathering and pedogenesis of Arctic desert soils. Morphological, mineralogical, and chemical data of the soil horizons indicate that there is very little soil differentiation between the parent material and the top horizons. However, since the Wisconsin retreat, some 11,000 years ago, bioxidation of pyrite Thiobacillus ferroxidans has converted most of the studied soil to acid sulfate soils containing sulfate‐bearing minerals such as natrojarosite and gypsum.
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Foscolos et al. (1981) studied this question.