The role of volcanic ash in formation of soil and vegetative cover in the present-day explosive volcanism area

By the example of an area near the active Karymskii Volcano (on the eastern coast of Kamchatka) it is shown that under conditions of regular supply of pyroclastic material on the diurnal surface, organic soil matter transforms very slowly and mobile trace elements of newly fallen volcanic ashes are the major plant nutrition source. Geochemical specialization of the studied area is characterized by lower concentrations of most trace elements relative to their clarkes for soils and by an excess of trace element contents over the clarkes for living matter in plants. Newly fallen ashes are enriched in mobile trace elements, which in dissolved form pass into adjacent media due to hypergene geochemical processes.