Geological and ecological observations of some High Plains dunes

Hefley, Harold M.; Sidwell, Raymond

doi:10.2475/ajs.243.7.361

Cited by 9 publications

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“…Although these workers did not explicitly state it, this model implies that sediments of the Pecos River valley were the sources of eolian sand. Conversely, Hefley and Sidwell (1945) proposed that eolian sands in the Muleshoe dune field were derived from underlying Tertiary sands, which we interpret to mean the Blackwater Draw Formation. The two possible sources have vastly different implications with regard to potential future dune reactivation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 65%

Origin of late Quaternary dune fields on the Southern High Plains of Texas and New Mexico

Muhs

Holliday

2001

Geological Society of America Bulletin

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Mostly stabilized late Holocene eolian sands on the Southern High Plains of the United States were studied to determine their origins and to assess whether present dune stability depends more strongly on sediment supply, sediment availability, or transport limitations. Geomorphic, sedimentological, and geochemical trends indicate that late Holocene dunes formed under westerly paleowinds, broadly similar to those of today. Mineralogical and geochemical data indicate that the most likely source for the sands is not the Pecos River valley, but the Pleistocene Blackwater Draw Formation, an older, extensive eolian deposit in the region. These observations suggest that new sand is supplied whenever vegetation cover is diminished to the extent that the Blackwater Draw Formation can be eroded, in agreement with modern observations of wind erosion in the region. We conclude, therefore, that Southern High Plains dunes are stabilized primarily due to a vegetation cover. The dunes are thus sediment-availability limited. This conclusion is consistent with the observation that, in the warmest, driest part of the region (where vegetation cover is minimal), dunes are currently active over a large area. Geochemical data indicate that Southern High Plains dunes are the most mineralogically mature (quartz rich) sands yet studied in the Great Plains, which suggests a long history of eolian activity, either in the dune fields or during deposition of the Blackwater Draw Formation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 65%

Origin of late Quaternary dune fields on the Southern High Plains of Texas and New Mexico

Muhs

Holliday

2001

Geological Society of America Bulletin

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“…The dunes fields of the Southern High Plains, in particular the three belts of dunes extending across the western part of the region, differ somewhat in their overall morphology, physical appearance, and to some degree stratigraphic records. The issue of the source area for the sand has long been controversial (e.g., Hefley and Sidwell, 1945;Green, 1951;Jones, 1959). Muhs and Holliday (2001) presented mineralogical and geochemical data to show that the dunes are most likely derived from the Blackwater Draw Formation; i.e., they were probably derived locally.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stratigraphy and geochronology of upper Quaternary eolian sand on the Southern High Plains of Texas and New Mexico, United States

Holliday

2001

Geological Society of America Bulletin

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Eolian sand in dune fields and sand sheets cover Ͼ10 000 km 2 (ϳ10%) of the Southern High Plains of northwestern Texas and eastern New Mexico. These deposits are concentrated in three west-east-trending belts of dunes (the Muleshoe, Lea-Yoakum, and Andrews dune fields, from north to south) that appear to be eastern extensions of the Mescalero-Monahans dune system in the Pecos River valley, and in the Seminole sand sheet, a discontinuous accumulation of sheet sands between the Lea-Yoakum and Monahans-Andrews dunes. The most common landforms are parabolic dunes associated with blowouts, coppice dunes, and sand sheets, all typical of sandy, vegetated, semiarid landscapes, barchan dunes, in keeping with a relatively limited sand supply and an underlying surface that is relatively hard (Blackwater Draw Formation, Pleistocene), and fencerow dunes, historic dunes formed along field boundaries. These eolian deposits accumulated episodically in the late Pleistocene and Holocene and provide clues to the history of regional drought and aridity. The earliest phase of sedimentation occurred when sheet sands were deposited between 11 000 and 8000 14 C yr B.P., probably in several phases, based on archaeological data, as a result of episodic drought beginning between 11 000 and 10 000 yr B.P. Eolian deposits dating between 8000 and 3000 yr B.P. are rare, although eolian sediment 8000-4500 14 C yr B.P. is ubiquitous in the draws that cross the region, and paleoenvironmental indicators show that the region was subjected to aridity throughout middle Holocene time. The middle Holocene de

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“…The origin of dunes on the Southern High Plains of Texas and New Mexico has been debated for more than seven decades. Hefley and Sidwell (1945) proposed that aeolian sands in at least some of the dune fields of the Southern High Plains were derived from underlying "Tertiary and early Pleistocene deposits," which can be interpreted to mean the Ogallala Formation and Blackwater Draw Formation, respectively. In one of his summary statements of decades of work, Lugn (1968) stated categorically that the older Tertiary Ogallala Formation was the main source of Pleistocene and Holocene aeolian sand for the entire Great Plains region, from Nebraska to Texas.…”

Section: Origin Of Dunes In the Southern High Plains Texas And New Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of simple geochemical indicators of aeolian sand provenance: Late Quaternary dune fields of North America revisited

Muhs

2017

Quaternary Science Reviews

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Dune fields of Quaternary age occupy large areas of the world's arid and semiarid regions. Despite this, there has been surprisingly little work done on understanding dune sediment provenance, in part because many techniques are time-consuming, prone to operator error, experimental, highly specialized, expensive, or require sophisticated instrumentation. Provenance of dune sand using K/Rb and K/Ba values in K-feldspar in aeolian sands of the arid and semiarid regions of North America is tested here. Results indicate that K/Rb and K/Ba can distinguish different river sands that are sediment sources for dunes and dune fields themselves have distinctive K/Rb and K/Ba compositions. Over the Basin and Range and Great Plains regions of North America, the hypothesized sediment sources of dune fields are reviewed and assessed using K/Rb and K/Ba values in dune sands and in hypothesized source sediments. In some cases, the origins of dunes assessed in this manner are consistent with previous studies and in others, dune fields are found to have a more complex origin than previously thought. Use of K/Rb and K/ Ba for provenance studies is a robust method that is inexpensive, rapid, and highly reproducible. It exploits one of the most common minerals found in dune sand, K-feldspar. The method avoids the problem of using simple concentrations of key elements that may be subject to interpretative bias due to changes in mineralogical maturity of Quaternary dune fields that occur over time.

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Geological and ecological observations of some High Plains dunes

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Origin of late Quaternary dune fields on the Southern High Plains of Texas and New Mexico

Origin of late Quaternary dune fields on the Southern High Plains of Texas and New Mexico

Stratigraphy and geochronology of upper Quaternary eolian sand on the Southern High Plains of Texas and New Mexico, United States

Evaluation of simple geochemical indicators of aeolian sand provenance: Late Quaternary dune fields of North America revisited

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