Studies of the steppe soils of the Poltava region in the Russian Empire in 1883, conducted by geologist Vasily Dokuchaev, showed that the peasants called all soils by color, so the scientist began to use such names. Chernozem was black in color due to its large amount of soil organic matter. Dokuchaev was the first to describe the chernozem of the European part of the Russian Empire, and discovered its fertility. Although distinctly classified due to its high content of iron and aluminium oxides chernozem shares many chemical and physical properties with the terra preta of the Amazon rainforest, also called Amazonian dark earths.
Chernozem layer thickness may vary widely, from several centimetres up to 1.5 metres (60 inches) in Ukraine, as well as the Red River Valley region in the northern United States and Canada (location of the prehistoric Lake Agassiz).
The terrain can also be found in small quantities elsewhere (for example, in 1% of Poland and Texas). It also exists in Northeast China, near Harbin. The only true chernozem in Australia is located around Nimmitabel, some of the richest soils on the continent.
Previously, there was a black market for the soil in Ukraine. The sale of agricultural land was illegal in Ukraine from 1992 to 2020, but the soil, transported by truck, could be traded legally. According to the Kharkiv-based Green Front NGO, the black market for illegally acquired chernozem in Ukraine was projected to reach approximately US$900 million per year in 2011.
1999: Michael W. I. Schmidt (neolithic biomass burning)
As seen in the list above, the 19th and 20th-century discussions on the pedogenesis of chernozem originally stemmed from climatic conditions from the early Holocene to roughly 5500 BC. However, no single paleoclimate reconstruction could accurately explain geochemical variations found in chernozems throughout central Europe. Evidence of anthropic origins of stable pyrogenic carbon in chernozem led to improved formation theories. Vegetation burning could explain chernozem's high magnetic susceptibility, the highest of the major soil types. Soil magnetism increases when soil minerals goethite and ferrihydrite convert to maghemite on exposure to heat. Temperatures sufficient to elevate maghemite on a landscape scale indicate the influence of fire. Given the rarity of such natural phenomena in the modern day, magnetic susceptibility in chernozem likely relates to control of fire by early humans.
Humification can darken soils (melanization) even in the absence of a pyrogenic carbon component. However, charcoal, also called black carbon when in the form of fine carbon particles, has been shown to be a prominent component of grassland soils in the Russian Steppe, the U.S. Great Plains, the Argentinian Pampa, the Manchurian Plains in China, and the Chernozem region in central Germany. Given the symphony of pedogenic processes that contribute to the formation of dark earths, chernozem summarizes different types of black soils with the same appearance but different formation histories.
IUSS Working Group WRB: World Reference Base for Soil Resources, fourth edition. International Union of Soil Sciences, Vienna 2022. ISBN979-8-9862451-1-9 ().
↑Geikie, Archibald (1875). Life of Sir Roderick I. Murchison, based on his journals and letters(PDF). Vol.1. London, United Kingdom: John Murray. Retrieved 3 December 2025. I end, therefore, in believing that this black earth is the last covering of mud and slime which was left by the retirement of the Liassic sea, and was to a great extent derived from the wearing away of the shales of the Jurassic strata
↑Krasilnikov, Pavel; Sorokin, Aleksey. "Classification of black soils, chernozems and chernozem-like soils"(PDF). International scientific conference "Eastern European chernozems 140 years after V. Dokuchaev", 2–3 October 2019, Chisinau, Moldova. Retrieved 3 December 2025. Before this publication black soils of South-Eastern Europe were regarded either as marine sediments (e.g. the theories of R. Murchinson and A. Petzgold) or dried peat lands (e.g. E.I. Eichwald, F.F. Wangenheim and some others)
↑Eckmeier, Eileen (2007). Detecting prehistoric fire-based farming using biogeochemical markers (Thesis). Zurich, Switzerland: University of Zurich, Faculty of Science. doi:10.5167/uzh-3752. It is now an open question as to whether Neolithic settlers did indeed prefer to grow crops where chernozems occurred or if Neolithic burning formed the chernozemic soils
