Features of soil cover structures of mining and industrial complexes in the Leningrad Oblast

Studies of soils and soil cover were conducted in the territory of mining complexes for the extraction of granite, sand and sand-gravel mixture, clay and peat mining. The development of mineral deposits leads to cardinal changes in soils and soil cover (SC), to the appearance of new soil varieties and soil cover structures (SCS) that have no analogues in natural landscapes. The areas of anthropogenically transformed soils, non-soil formations and newly formed soil combinations in such areas often have a geometrically regular shape. In places where natural SC has been completely destroyed (quarry excavation), a water body or new non-contrasting SCS are formed, which are closest to natural tachets and whose components are underdeveloped soils. Along the access roads to the quarries, depending on the extracted minerals, different forms of new anthropogenic SCS are formed. The access road to the sand pit does not have high shoulders fixed by vegetation cover, which allows the formation of a two-way relationship, manifested in the transfer of sandy material from the road surface to the shoulders (stratified soils) and in the opposite direction. Peat mining is characterized by regular-cellular rectangular forms of soil combinations due to peat extraction technology. On the territory of the clay quarry, SCS close to natural mosaics are formed. The identified SCS formed on the territory of mining-industrial complexes in most cases have no analogues among natural ones, and for the purposes of mapping these territories, as well as assessing changes in the ecological functions of soils of anthropogenically transformed territories, further development of the typology of anthropogenic SCS is required.