Restinga is a typical vegetation on quartzitic, sandy, nutrient-poor parent materials along the Brazilian coast.. Podzolization is the main pedogenic process in restinga soils and Spodosols and Quartzipsamments with incipient podzolization are the most common soils. Podzolization is frequently studied in cold climate regions, while mineralogical studies of Spodosols in tropical climate on quartzitic parent material are scant. In this work, soils under restinga vegetation on the Ilha do Cardoso-SP, Brazil were studied to identify the mineralogical assembly of silt and clay fractions and to provide a better understanding of their genesis. Quartz and kaolinite are the main minerals in the clay fraction while feldspars and quartz prevail in the silt fraction. This indicates that the mineralogical assembly of the restinga soils on Ilha do Cardoso is poorer than that of soils in colder climates and of other soils along the Brazilian coast. This is mainly due to the parent material which is scarce in easily weatherable primary minerals. In some horizons (2Cgj) smectites were identified; they can be inherited or neoformed, and their genesis is unrelated with podzolization.
Spodosol; podzolization; primary minerals in soils; kaolinite
