×
Your location has been changed to Madison area.
This Event has Passed
WN@tL: "Dunes, dust, drought, and downpours: Evolution of Great Plains landscapes in changing past a
The strong winds of the central Great Plains have built the largest dune field in North America—now stabilized by grass—and thick deposits of dust, or loess. This talk will begin with an overview of 25 years of research on past intervals of dune activity and rapid dust deposition linked to more frequent severe drought or other climatic conditions in the central Plains over the past 25,000 years, using methods including luminescence dating, stable isotope analysis, and studies of buried soils that record past environmental conditions. I will then describe our current research on understanding how intense rainfall—also typical of the Great Plains—erodes both the tablelands built by loess deposition and the stable sand dunes, using studies of soil hydrology and landscape evolution models. Finally, I will consider what this research tells us about how these landscapes of sand and loess may change in response to present and future climate change, with implications for grassland ecosystems, prime agricultural land and rangeland, and the High Plains (Ogallala) Aquifer.
Event Links
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/1614908-0
