Das Projekt "ERA.Net-RUS: Weathering and landscape evolution in fragile alpine and subarctic regions" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Zürich, Geographisches Institut durchgeführt. Chemical weathering of rocks is extremely important for the generation of soils, for the evolution of landscape, and as a main source of inorganic nutrients for plant growth and therefore for life. Due to climate warming, additional areas will become ice-free and subject to weathering and soil formation. Large parts of the European Alps and Russia including the Altai mountains of Asia were glaciated during the last ice age. Glaciers and periods of glaciation have a significant impact on global weathering. Proglacial environments are important for the understanding of global CO2 cycling on glacial/interglacial timescales as they made up a significant amount of the global land surface during the Quaternary due to the advance and retreat of glaciers and ice sheets. Consequently, the currently occurring worldwide climate changes are fuelling a growing interest in the effect that the state factors such as climate, parent material, topography, organisms and time are having on the landscape and consequently soil evolution. The concept of the factors for soil formation is enjoying a broad renaissance as the worlds people become aware of how the rich resources of soils and ecosystems are being wasted. Consequently, weathering mechanisms as a scientific topic have gained much in importance over the last two decades. The alteration mechanisms are nonetheless poorly understood and further research is required to explain soil and landscape evolution and their response to changing environmental conditions. A main gap in knowledge exists about the velocity of (clay) mineral transformations or formations in soils or material starting to be a soil in high alpine and arctic climate zones. Especially little is known about the initial stages of weathering and soil formation, i.e. during the first decades to centuries of soil genesis. Two different kinds of soil production functions are discussed in literature: a) soil evolution and consequently weathering can be modelled using a humped function which means that soil production and weathering is maximised at a certain time or b) models using an exponential function are often applied. Accordingly, production and weathering exponentially decreases with time. Due to the two different soil production concepts, soil formation and weathering can have both a slow or high reactivity at the initial stage. A challenge is now to test the applicability of the existing soil production functions and as yet unknown forms to different kinds of situations. A main aim of the proposed collaboration and scientific exchange is to compare existing and new datasets (where the main applicants have access to) on weathering and soil evolution in the Alps (Swiss and Italian Alps), the Altai mountains (Siberia, Russian Altai) and the Polar Urals (the Ural Mountains, Russia). In addition, datasets from the Wind River Range (Rocky Mountains, USA) will be available. (abridged text)