Summary description of Gleysols
Connotation: Soils with clear signs of groundwater influence; from Russian gley,mucky mass.
Parent material: A wide range of unconsolidated materials, mainly fluvial, marine and lacustrine sediments of Pleistocene or Holocene age, with basic to acidic mineralogy.
Environment: Depression areas and low landscape positions with shallow groundwater.
Profile development: Evidence of reduction processes with segregation of Fe compounds within 50 cm of the soil surface.