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The recognition and characterization of aeolian dust in soil contribute to a better understanding of landscape and ecosystem dynamics of drylands. Results of this study show that recently deposited dust, sampled in isolated, mostly high-ground settings, is chemically and mineralogically similar on varied geologic substrates over a large area (15 000 km2) in the Mojave Desert. The silt-plus-clay fraction (fines) on these isolated surfaces is closely alike in magnetic-mineral composition, in contrast to greatly dissimilar magnetic compositions of rock surfaces of vastly different lithologies, on which the fines have accumulated. The fines, thus, are predominantly deposited dust. The amounts of potential nutrients...
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Aeolian dust strongly influences ecology and landscape geochemistry over large areas that span several desert ecosystems of the southwestern United States. This study evaluates spatial and temporal variations and trends of the physical and chemical properties of dust in the southwestern United States by examining dust deposited in natural depressions on high isolated surfaces along a transect from the Mojave Desert to the central Colorado Plateau. Aeolian dust is recognized in these depressions on the basis of textural, chemical, isotopic, and mineralogical characteristics and comparisons of those characteristics to the underlying bedrock units. Spatial and temporal trends suggest that although local dust sources...
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In upland areas of Canyonlands National Park, Utah, thin deposits and paleosols show late Quaternary episodes of eolian sedimentation, pedogenesis, and climate change. Interpretation of the stratigraphy and optically stimulated luminescence ages of eolian and nearby alluvial deposits, their pollen, and intercalated paleosols yields the following history: (1) Eolian deposition at ca. 46 ka, followed by several episodes of alluviation from some time before ca. 40 ka until after 16 ka (calibrated). (2) Eolian deposition from ca. 17 ka to 12 ka, interrupted by periods of pedogenesis, coinciding with late Pleistocene alluviation as local climate became warmer and wetter. (3) A wetter period from 12 to 8.5 ka corresponding...
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Dust emission and deposition in southwestern United States - integrated field, remote sensing, and modeling studies to evaluate response to climatic variability and land use, credited to Clow, Gary D, published in 2003. Published in Desertification in the Third Millennium, on pages 271 - 282, in 2003.
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