PERIODICAL AND APERIODICAL CHANGES OF PRO PERTIES OF YOUNG MARSHLAND SOILS SEAWARDS THE DIKE

The changes of properties of young marshland soils searwards the dike were investigated (1.) throughout the year, (2.) after storm tides, lo ng drought Periods and intensive rainfalls, and (3.) In the course f t he low-high tide cycle. -In each case the relative cation distribution of the saturation extract remained constant. The relative distributio n of the mobile cations remained also constant within the low-high tid e cycle. while it shows fluctuations with a deviation of up to 16 % fr om the mean Na-content within the oneyear investigation and up to 28 % after extreme climatic or storm tide conditions. The annual salt fluc tuations were determined to be at least 60-80 %. The deviations from t he mean salt content were at least 100 % after storm tides and long dr ought periods (extreme deviation of 370 % within the first 1-3 cm soil ) and partly also after heavy rain. The redox conditions remained cons tant within the low-high tide cycle, whereas they differed to a small extent following extreme climatic or storm tide conditions. With value s of 0.4-0.9 the soils showed a small spectrum of different Ca/Mg rati os. Moreover, the determined annual fluctuation of the Ca/Mg ratios sh owed that the Ca/Mg ratio is not a suitable classification criterion.