Sakha, Russia, 2013

The Sakha workshop presented extreme cold-climate conditions, with soils affected by permafrost and cryogenic processes. Participants examined Cryosols and soils with freeze–thaw dynamics, which posed significant challenges for classification. The community focused on identifying diagnostic features related to permafrost, ice lenses, and seasonal thaw layers. Discussions emphasized the need to better represent cold-region processes within WRB. The fieldwork required careful observation and comparison, as many features are subtle or temporally variable. The workshop highlighted the importance of including Arctic and sub-Arctic soils in global classification systems and contributed to refining WRB criteria for these environments.

Guidebook-monograph for the Mammoth ultra-continental WRB field workshop, Sakha