The development of the terminology in the field of soil micromorphology reflected a well-known contradiction between two approaches—the genetic and interpretational versus the substantive and morphological-which ended with a compromise in the form of the international Handbook for Soil Thin Sections Description published in 1985. This handbook was widely used around the world. Later on, several changes were introduced into it, and it was updated in the new monograph by G. Stoops. Recently, a list of the main terms appeared on the Internet in 16 languages. The authors of this paper created the Russian version of these terms, which stimulated the further discussion of the nomenclature and concepts in the field of soil micromorphology in Russia. The comparative analysis of the micromorphological terminology presented in this paper may be useful for micromorphologists to improve the description and interpretation of thin sections and for a wider range of specialists in soil science and related sciences to adequately assess the options of using micromorphology in their research.

An assemblage of coatings in cryoaridic soils (Skeletic Cambisols Protocalcic) of southwestern Tyva is considered as a key block of soil memory, which is an intrasoil archive of landscape and climate changes in regional geosystems in the Holocene. The results of hierarchical macro-, meso-, and micromorphological studies of a large assemblage of coatings and the data on the X-ray microanalysis of coatings and composition of stable carbon and oxygen isotopes, as well as on radiocarbon dating of coatings are presented. The synthesis of the results made it possible to reconstruct the main evolutionary phases of cryoaridic soils in the Holocene and landscape and climate changes that induced their alteration. The following climatogenic evolutionary phases of pedogenesis were distinguished: (1) formation of microsparite–micritic dense silica-containing coatings due to short-term fluctuations of the shallow alkaline bicarbonate groundwater level in the semiarid–arid climate; (2) formation of sparitic dense coatings under the slow accumulation of carbonates from low-mineralized bicarbonate water at the higher lake level as compared to the present one in the less arid conditions; (3) the eluvial-illuvial formation of micritic loose coatings under stable automorphic semiarid conditions; (4) formation of Fe-humus coatings in cool humid climate (Al–Fe-humus phase of pedogenesis); (5) the recommencement of the eluvial-illuvial formation of micritic loose coatings under aridization of the last thousand years of the Holocene.