The purpose of this task is to understand the dynamics of sand dune activity in the central and western United States, whether due to naturally occurring climate changes or human impacts on the landscape. For decades, it was assumed that dune fields of the Great Plains were last active during the last glacial period and thus are ice-age relics.
It is now known that most dune fields in the region have been active many times in the past 10,000 years and even within the past 3,000 years. The same is true for many dune fields in the western United States. Thus, dunes in both regions can be active under an essentially modern, interglacial climatic regime. Although most dune fields in both the central and western U.S. are now stable, future climates or land use practices could activate them. In the Great Plains, this would result in serious impacts on grazing resources, croplands, wildlife habitats and transportation routes. In the western United States, many dune fields occur on Federal lands administered by the National Park Service (NPS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), or Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Land officials with these agencies need to understand the potential for landscape changes due to dune reactivation in order to provide enlightened guidance for land management.
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Figure 5: Map showing the distribution of mostly stabilized sand dunes in the Great Plains of the USA. |
| Figure 6: Map showing the distribution of sand dunes, some active, some stabilized, in the southwestern USA and adjacent Mexico. See Muhs et al., 2003, Quaternary International. |
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Figure 7: Color infrared aerial photograph showing stabilized sand dunes in eastern Alaska, along the Alaska Highway near Tetlin National Wildlife Reserve. Healthy vegetation shows as red; water bodies appear black or very dark blue. |
Figure 8: Geologic cross section, showing sand dune deposits (in yellow) and underlying deposits. The Lincoln County dune field formed in part when the Nebraska Sand Hills moved southward late in the last glacial period and filled in the North and South Platte River valleys. This dammed the two rivers and forming a large lake upstream in western Nebraska. Later, the dam was breached by the rivers and the dune stabilized. See Muhs et al., 2000, Quaternary Research.
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Figure 10: Paired aerial photographs, from 1936 and 1991, showing dunes that were active during the 1930s "Dust Bowl" drought and the same dunes stabilized by vegetation at present.
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Muhs, D.R., Stafford, T.W., Jr., Swinehart, J.B., Cowherd, S.D., Mahan, S.A., Bush, C.A., Madole, R.F., and Maat, P.B., 1997, Late Holocene eolian activity in the mineralogically mature Nebraska Sand Hills: Quaternary Research, v. 48, p. 162-176. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
Muhs, D.R., Stafford, T.W., Jr., Been, J., Mahan, S.A., Burdett, J., Skipp, G., and Rowland, Z.M., 1997, Holocene eolian activity in the Minot dune field, North Dakota: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 34, p. 1442-1459.
Muhs, D.R., Swinehart, J.B., Loope, D.B., Aleinikoff, J.N., and Been, J., 1999, 200,000 years of climate change recorded in eolian sediments of the High Plains of eastern Colorado and western Nebraska: Geological Society of America Field Guide 1, 71-91. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
Muhs, D.R., and Wolfe, S.A., 1999, Sand dunes of the northern Great Plains of Canada and the United States: Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin, 534, p. 183-197.
Muhs, D.R., Swinehart, J.B., Loope, D.B., Been, J., Mahan, S.A., and Bush, C.A., 2000, Geochemical evidence for an eolian sand dam across the North and South Platte Rivers in Nebraska: Quaternary Research, v. 53, p. 214-222. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
Arbogast, A.F., and Muhs, D.R., 2000, Geochemical and mineralogical evidence from eolian sediments for northwesterly mid-Holocene paleowinds, central Kansas, U.S.A.: Quaternary International, v. 67, p. 107-118. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
Wolfe, S.A., Muhs, D.R., David, P.P., and McGeehin, J.P., 2000, Chronology and geochemistry of late Holocene eolian deposits in the Brandon Sand Hills, Manitoba, Canada: Quaternary International, v. 67, p. 61-74. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
Muhs, D.R. and Holliday, V.T., 2001, Origin of late Quaternary dune fields on the Southern High Plains of Texas and New Mexico: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 113, p. 75-87. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
Harrison, S.P., Kutzbach, J.E., Liu, Z., Bartlein, P.J., Otto-Bliesner, B., Muhs, D., Prentice, I.C., and Thompson, R.S., 2003, Mid-Holocene climates of the Americas: a dynamical response to changed seasonality: Climate Dynamics, v. 20, p. 663-688. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
Muhs, D.R., Reynolds, R., Been, J., and Skipp, G., 2003, Eolian sand transport pathways in the southwestern United States: Importance of the Colorado River and local sources: Quaternary International, v. 104, p. 3-18. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
Muhs, D.R., 2004, Mineralogical maturity in dune fields of North America, Africa and Australia: Geomorphology, v. 59, p. 247-269. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
Sun, J., and Muhs, D.R., 2006, Mid-latitude dune fields, in: Elias, S. (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Quaternary Sciences: Amsterdam: Elsevier, in press.
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Figure 9a: Color infrared aerial photograph showing two ages of sand dunes in eastern Colorado along the South Platte River. Healthy vegetation shows as red; water bodies appear black or very dark blue.
Figure 9b: Photograph showing two ages of dunes exposed in eastern Colorado, in the northern part of Fig. 9a.