VERTICAL-DISTRIBUTION OF CHRYSOTALUNIN, A MAJOR SOIL ANTHRAQUINONE PIGMENT, IN SOIL PROFILES

The occurrence of chrysotalunin (CLN), a major soil anthraquinone pigment, has been reported in various soils of the world (McGrath 1967, 1970, 1972; Matsui and Kumada 1974; Foo and Tate 1977). The concentration of CLN occasionally amounted to ca. 120 mg kg-1in the Irish podzol Bh horizon (McGrath 1972) or ca. 200 mg kg-1in the Kauri podzol Bh horizon from New Zealand (Foo and Tate 1977). However, little attention had been paid to the occurrence and distribution of CLN hitherto. Recently, we have developed a method for the isolative determination of CLN in soils by HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography) coupled with the acetylation of CLN (Fujitake et al 1991b). Subsequently, we observed that CLN was ubiquitous in the Japanese surface soils and there was a certain regularity in the distribution of the CLN contents among different soil types or under different vegetation cover (Fujitake et al. 1991a). In this paper the vertical distribution of CLN in various soil profiles of Japan is reported. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.