ABSTRACT: The Galapagos Islands have been a place of preeminent scientific discoveries. The archipelago has formed on a tectonic plate moving over a volcanic hotspot, which has generated a chain of volcanic islands of different ages. This tectonic setting has favored the evolution of a unique flora and fauna on the islands; however, little is known on how it has influenced the formation and evolution of soils and belowground ecosystems. In order to enable the investigation of soil and ecosystem evolution, the aim of this study was to establish a soil chronosequence covering the full age range from the younger islands in the west to the older islands in the east of the archipelago. Six sites in the humid zones of the islands as well as two drier comparison sites were selected for this study. We characterized the geochemistry and mineralogy of the soil parent materials and constrained their ages using 14C (

中文翻译：

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将加拉帕戈斯群岛四个岛屿的岩石年龄和土壤覆盖联系起来

摘要：加拉帕戈斯群岛一直是杰出的科学发现之地。该群岛是在一个火山热点上移动的构造板块上形成的，从而产生了一系列不同时代的火山岛。这种构造环境有利于岛上独特的动植物群的进化。然而，人们对其如何影响土壤和地下生态系统的形成和演化知之甚少。为了能够对土壤和生态系统演化进行调查，本研究的目的是建立一个土壤年代序列，涵盖从西部较年轻的岛屿到群岛东部较老的岛屿的整个年龄范围。本研究选择了岛屿潮湿地区的六个地点以及两个较干燥的比较地点。