A Holocene soil-geomorphic record from the Ham site near Frontier, southwestern Saskatchewan

Abstract

The soil-geomorphic evolution of a hillslope in hummocky moraine terrain in one of the most arid parts of the Palliser Triangle is reconstructed from ca. 12 600 BP to the present. A transect from a moraine plateau into an internally drained basin provided evidence for seven postglacial landscape cycles. Each cycle includes a phase of land-surface instability, marked by erosional and depositional imprints, and a phase of stability, marked by pedologic imprints. Five cycles of slopewash-dominated erosion left behind four superposed downslope-thickening and downslope-fining sediment mantles and were followed by two eolian cycles, each of which left behind a loess mantle that accumulated from a local loess-dispersal system. Accumulation of long-range calcareous dust coincided with each of these loess cycles. The five complete buried soil catenas and the surficial catena have systematic textural differentiation, reflecting the preceding geomorphic regimen, and color differentiation, reflecting the soil-drainage continua. Changes in hillslope hydrology occurred repeatedly throughout the postglacial. The evidence indicates that each element from the 14 successive local soil landscapes reacted to environmental change as a component from a functionally integrated process -response system. L'tvolution gComorphique des sols sur le versant d'un terrain morainique, en creux et bosses, localisk dans une des parties les plus arides du triangle de Palliser, est reconstituke a partir de 12 600 ans Av.Pr. jusqu'i nos jours. Une coupe transversale du plateau morainique, faisant partie d'un bassin a drainage interne, documente sept cycles de paysages postglaciaires. Chaque cycle inclut une phase d'instabilitk de la surface du terrain marquke par des figures d'trosion et des dkpbts, et une phase de stabilitk rkvklke par des figures ptklologiques. Cinq cycles d'krosion domines par le ruissellement sur versant ont laissk en amont quatre kpaississements superposCs de bas de pente, lesquels sont recouverts de sediments fins, ils sont suivis par deux cycles d'krosion Coliennes, chacun ayant laissk derrikre lui une couverture de loess qui Ctait alimentte par un systkme local de dispersion du loess. Une accumulation Ctendue de poussikre calcareuse accompagnait chacun des cycles de loess. Les cinq catenas de sols totalement enfouies, et aussi la catena de surface, presentent une difftrenciation texturale systkmatique qui reflkte le rkgime gkomorphique prtckdent, et la diffkrence des couleurs exprime la continuitk skquentielle dans le drainage du sol. Des changements dans l'hydrologie des versants sont apparus de manikre rtpktitive durant tout le postglaciaire. Les resultats de l'ktude indiquent que chaque klkment des 14 paysages de sol locaux et successifs rkagissait au changement des conditions du milieu, en se comportant comme une composante fonctionnellement intkgrke dans un systkme de u processus -rCponse r.[Traduit par la rkdaction]Can.

Loess record of the Pleistocene–Holocene transition on the northern and central Great Plains, USA

“…Other, more local, sources of dust have apparently produced thin loess mantles on stable upland surfaces in semiarid western North Dakota, but not thick deposits containing the Leonard Paleosol. Loess or clifftop eolian deposits that are of local origin, and not derived from large river floodplains, have been documented nearby in Saskatchewan (David, 1970;Vreeken, 1994) and South Dakota (Rawling and Fredlund, 2003).…”

Chernozemic soils of Canada: Genesis, distribution, and classification

“…Sources differ in the findings about the climate after the Hypsithermal. Klassen (1994), Sauchyn and Sauchyn (1991) and Vreeken (1986Vreeken ( , 1994 found evidence that the post-Hypsithermal climate was somewhat cooler and moister than the present climate; however, other authors, including Oetelaar (2004), concluded that after the Hypsithermal, the climate changed to conditions similar to those found in the historical record.…”

“…ON SOIL FORMATION The land surface and the soils that formed on them were also affected by climate change in the Holocene. Numerous studies into climatic trends during the Holocene in the Northern Great Plains of North America have been done using pollen and chemical analysis from lake cores (e.g., Sauchyn and Sauchyn 1991;Klassen 1994;Yansa 1998;Last and Vance 2001) and stratigraphic soil records (Vreeken 1986(Vreeken , 1994Oetelaar 2004). Different methods result in variations of the dating of periods of landscape stability and instability, but broad lines of agreement exist.…”

Evidence for Holocene Aeolian Activity at the Close of the Middle Bronze Age in the Eastern Carpathian Basin: Geoarchaeological Results from the Mureş River Valley, Romania

“…Multiple episodes of Holocene nonglaciogenic loess deposition have been documented in the central Great plains of the United States and in Saskatchewan, Canada under climatic and environmental conditions that are not dissimilar to the eastern Carpathian Basin (David, ; Clayton, Moran, & Bickley, ; Vreeken, ; Mason & Kuzila, ; Jacobs & Mason, ). These periods of nonglacigenic loess accumulation are related to increased aridity and/or large magnitude floods that decreased vegetative cover on floodplains promoting renewed aeolian transport of local Pleistocene loess deposits.…”