Albic horizon (WRB 2022)

A bleached eluvial horizon – claric material that has lost iron oxides and/or organic matter due to clay migration, podzolization, or redox under stagnant water. Diagnostic for parts of Podzols, Retisols and Planosols qualifiers.

Usage

albic(pedon, min_thickness = 1)

Arguments

pedon

A PedonRecord.

min_thickness

Minimum thickness in cm (default 1, per WRB 2022). The albic horizon has no canonical thickness gate; we keep a token min so that fully-NA layers don't pass.

Value

A DiagnosticResult.

Details

Sub-tests:

• test_claric_munsell – Munsell criteria of claric material (Ch 3.3.4).

Designation pattern E or Eg also serves as positive evidence when Munsell columns are missing (proxy path).

References

IUSS Working Group WRB (2022), Ch 3.1 – Albic horizon.