Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T13:14:26.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Holocene Environments and Soil Geomorphology in Midwestern United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Robert V. Ruhe
Robert V. Ruhe*
Affiliation:
Water Resources Research Center, Department of Geology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47401 USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In midwestern United States the most important widespread environmental event during the Holocene about 8000 y.a. was the establishment of an effective precipitation pattern that in part defines the Prairie Peninsula. The pattern occupies a region that is dominated by dry westerly air for 6–9 mo during normal years and for 9–12 mo during drought years. Regional soil geography correlates readily with zones of precipitation effectiveness with Brunizem (Udolls) conforming to the moist, subhumid zone, Chernozem (Boralls, Udolls) relating to the dry, subhumid zone, and Chestnut and Brown soils (Ustolls) fitting the semiarid zone. During the past few thousand years, a climatic reversal has caused encroachment of forest on prairie resulting in the formation of transitional or intergrade soils.

In local areas the Holocene is expressed on the land surface by the soil geomorphic unit which is the repetitive occurrence of a sequence of soils on the erosional surface of a hillslope and on the correlative depositional body at the foot and toe of the slope. This unit embraces time, lithology, landscape, and soils and provides a means for mapping the Holocene on the countryside.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , December 1974 , pp. 487 - 495
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Commission on Stratigraphic Nomenclature(1961). Code of stratigraphic nomenclature. American Association Petroleum Geologists Bulletin 45, 645–665.Google Scholar
Baldwin, M., Kellogg, C.E., Thorp, J., (1938). Soil classification. Soils and Men. U.S. Department of Agriculture Yearbook of Agriculture 979–1001Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Borchert, J.R., (1950). The climate of the central North American grassland. Annals American Association Geographers 40, 1–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bryson, R.A., Wendland, W.M., (1967). Tentative climatic patterns for some late glacial and post-glacial climatic changes. Mayer-Oakes, W.J., Life, Land, and Water University Manitoba Press, Winnipeg 271–302.Google Scholar
Bryson, R.A., Baerreis, D.A., Wendland, W.M., (1970). The character of late glacial and post-glacial climatic changes. Dort, W., Jones, J.K., Universities Press, Kansas, Lawrence 53–74.Google Scholar
Frye, J.C., Leonard, A.B., (1965). Quaternary of the southern Great Plains. Wright, H.E., Frey, D.G., The Quaternary of the United States Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey 203–216.Google Scholar
Frye, J.C., Willman, H.B., (1960). Classification of the Wisconsinan stage in the Lake Michigan glacial lobe. Illinois Geological Survey Circular 285.Google Scholar
Horton, R.E., (1945). Erosional development of streams and their drainage basins; hydrophysical approach to quantitative morphology. Geological Society America Bulletin 56, 275–370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kellogg, C.E., (1941). Climate and soil. Climate and Man. U.S. Department of Agriculture Yearbook of Agriculture 265–291Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Kleiss, H.J., (1970). Hillslope sedimentation and soil formation in northeastern Iowa. Soil Science Society America Proceedings 34, 287–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loomis, W.E., McComb, A.L., (1944). Recent advances of forest in Iowa. Iowa Academy Science Proceedings 61, 217–224.Google Scholar
McComb, A.L., Loomis, W.E., (1944). Subclimax prairie. Torrey Botanical Club Bulletin 71, 46–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McComb, A.L., Riecken, F.F., (1961). Effect of vegetation on soils in the forest-prairie region. Recent Advances in Botany. University Toronto Press, Toronto, Canada 1627–1631.Google Scholar
Ruhe, R.V., (1965). Quaternary paleopedology. Wright, H.E., Frey, D.G., The Quaternary of the United States Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey 755–764.Google Scholar
Ruhe, R.V., (1969). Quaternary Landscapes in Iowa. Iowa State University Press, Ames.Google Scholar
Ruhe, R.V., (1970). Soils, paleosols, and environment. Dort, W., Jones, J.K., Pleistocene and Recent Environments of the Central Great Plains Universities Press, Kansas, Lawrence 37–52.Google Scholar
Ruhe, R.V., Dietz, W.P., Fenton, T.E., Hall, G.F., (1968). Iowan drift problem, northeastern Iowa. Iowa Geological Survey Report Investigations 7, 40.Google Scholar
Simonson, R.W., (1954). Identification and interpretation of buried soils. American Journal Science 252, 706–732.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soil Map(1938). Soil associations of the United States. Soils and Men. U.S. Department of Agriculture Yearbook of Agriculture Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Soil Map(1960). Major soils of the North-Central Region, U.S.A. Soils of the North-Central Region of the United States. Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 544.Google Scholar
Soil Map(1969). Distribution of principal kinds of soils: orders, suborders, and great groups. National Atlas. U.S. Geological Survey, Washington, D.CSheets 85, 86.Google Scholar
Soil Survey Staff(1973). Soil Taxonomy, a Basic System of Soil Classification for Making and Interpreting Soil Surveys. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Thornwatte, C.W., (1941). Atlas of climatic types in the United States. U.S. Department of Agricullure Miscellaneous Publication 421, 1–7.Google Scholar
Thorp, J., Smith, G.D., (1949). Higher categories of soil classification. Soil Science 67, 117–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thorp, J., Johnson, W.M., Reed, E.C., (1951). Some post-Pliocene buried soils of central United States. Journal Soil Science 2, 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vreeken, W.J., (1973). Soil variability in small loess watersheds: clay and organic carbon content. Catena 1, 181–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, P.H., (1966). Postglacial environments in relation to landscape and soils on the Cary drift, Iowa. Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station Research Bulletin 549, 838–875.Google Scholar
Wayne, W.J., (1963). Pleistocene formations in Indiana. Indiana Geological Survey Bulletin 25, 85.Google Scholar
Wells, P.V., (1970). Postglacial vegetational history of the Great Plains. Science 167, 1574–1582.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
White, E.M., Riecken, F.F., (1955). Brunizem-Gray Brown Podzolic soil biosequences. Soil Science Society America Proceedings 19, 504–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willman, H.B., Frye, J.C., (1970). Pleistocene stratigraphy of Illinois. Illinois Geological Survey Bulletin 94.Google Scholar
Wright, H.E., (1968). History of the Prairie Peninsula. The Quaternary of Illinois. Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station Special Publication 14, 78–88.Google Scholar