A gleysol or gley soil is a hydric soil that unless drained is saturated with groundwater for long enough to develop a characteristic gleyic colour pattern.

Gleysol, one of the 30 soil groups in the classification system of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Gleysols are formed under waterlogged conditions produced by rising groundwater. In the tropics and subtropics they are cultivated for rice or, after drainage, for field crops and trees.

Artificially drained Gleysols are used for arable cropping, dairy farming and horticulture. Gleysols in the tropics and subtropics are widely planted to rice. Gleysols occupy an estimated 720 million hectares worldwide. They are azonal soils and occur in nearly all climates, from perhumid to arid.

Gleysolic soils are wetland soils whose morphology is created by the effects of water saturation on soil processes in mineral soil horizons. The g (for gleyed) suffix is applied both to horizons with reddish or grayish mottling present and to horizons with dull, blue grey colours. Both are caused by the effects of water saturation on soil minerals.

Gleysols occur throughout the world where groundwater comes near to the surface, causing soils to become wet for a prolonged part of the year. They are particularly abundant in the low-lying river basins. Soils having gleyic properties (properties associated with prolonged wetness) within 50 cm from the soil surface.

Gleysols are characterized by subsurface horizons with prominent redoximorphic features formed by intermittent to long-term dysoxia or anoxia.

Apr 19, 2011 · In the Canadian System of Soil Classification, the Gleysolic Order includes all those soils with morphologic features that provide dominant physical evidence of oxidation-reduction processes or gleying.

Feb 20, 2021 · Gley Soils form where soils are saturated for long periods due to high or perched water tables, or slow drainage. Gley Soils occur throughout New Zealand but are more common in areas of high rainfall such as the West Coast of the South Island.

These soils have the general properties specified for the Gleysolic order and the Humic Gleysol great group. They differ from Orthic Humic Gleysols in that they lack a B horizon at least 10 cm thick. Typically, they have a well-developed Ah horizon overlying a gleyed C horizon.

Jan 1, 2016 · Gleysols are wetland soils, which in the natural state are continuously water‐saturated within 50 cm of the surface, for long periods of time. Reduction of Fe and Mn leads predominantly to grayish hues in the profile below the water table. This article is based on the descriptions in FAO (2001). Connotation.