Holocene eolian activity in the Minot dune field, North Dakota (original) (raw)
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Late Holocene Eolian Activity in the Mineralogically Mature Nebraska Sand Hills
Quaternary Research, 1997
The age of sand dunes in the Nebraska Sand Hills has been controversial, with some investigators suggesting a full-glacial age and others suggesting that they were last active in the late Holocene. New accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon ages of unaltered bison bones and organic-rich sediments suggest that eolian sand deposition occurred at least twice in the past 300014C yr B.P. in three widely separated localities and as many as three times in the past 80014C yr at three other localities. These late Holocene episodes of eolian activity are probably the result of droughts more intense than the 1930s “Dust Bowl” period, based on independent Great Plains climate records from lake sediments and tree rings. However, new geochemical data indicate that the Nebraska Sand Hills are mineralogically mature. Eolian sands in Nebraska have lower K-feldspar (and K2O, Rb, and Ba) contents than most possible source sediments and lower K-feldspar contents than dunes of similar age in Colorado. The most likely explanation for mineralogical maturity is reduction of sand-sized K-feldspar to silt-sized particles via ballistic impacts due to strong winds over many cycles of eolian activity. Therefore, dunes of the Nebraska Sand Hills must have had a long history, probably extending over more than one glacial–interglacial cycle, and the potential for reactivation is high, with or without a future greenhouse warming.
Global and Planetary Change, 1995
Presently stabilized dune systems on the piedmont of eastern Colorado and adjacent High Plains have been repeatedly re-activated during the past 20,000 years. Radiocarbon and thermoluminescence age estimates indicate eolian activity late in the last glacial cycle ca. 20,000–12,000 yr B.P. and subsequent episodes of dune reactivation at ca. 6000, 4500 and 1000 yr B.P. Pollen analysis from aggraded buried soil A horizons show a shift from grasses and shrubs to goosefoot, a disturbance indicator. The association of maximum goosefoot levels with the coarsest part of the buried A horizon immediately prior to burial by eolian sand indicates a substantial reduction in grass and dominance of shrubs with onset of eolian activity. The vegetation change and eolian depositional sequence indicates a reduction in plant coverage with regional drought, possibly augmented by bison grazing and surface heating effects.We infer an increase in summer monsoonal precipitation between 13,000 and 9000 yr B.P. reflecting a heightened land-to-sea temperature gradient associated with rising summer solar-insolation values and a meltwater cooled Gulf of Mexico. Dune reactivation in the middle and late Holocene appears to be independent of summer insolation values, but rather reflects a small (< 10°) easterly shift of the Bermuda High and western ridge aloft, difficult parameters to link to a cause and to resolve with climate models.