Formation mechanisms and control factors of vesicular soil structure

Dietze, Michael; Bartel, Sebastian; Lindner, Martin; Kleber, Arno

doi:10.1016/j.catena.2012.06.011

Cited by 28 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 38 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…These findings are in complete agreement with the suggested genesis of vesicular horizons: aeolian dust is trapped on the surface, and with rainfall the fine fractions of this material are translocated along aggregate boundaries to the ped interiors through elongated macropores (McFadden et al, 1998;Anderson et al, 2002). According to Dietze et al (2012b), the coarse fractions of the loose material on top of the Av horizon remain at the surface Figure 6: Abanico plots of the measured equivalent dose distributions of coarse-grain (A) and fine-grain (B) samples. Fine-grain samples show consistently narrower distributions and more data within 2 standard units around the error-weighted means.…”

Section: End-member Interpretationsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…A regionally recognised aeolian activity phase (Qe2) is evident between 8.4 and 3.5 ka (McDonald et al, 2003). However, unit S III is likely to be still actively growing as witnessed by studies on modern dust fluxes (e.g., Reheis, 2006) or 2 cm thick incipient vesicular horizons below gravel roads abandoned for not more than 25 years (Dietze et al, 2012b). Micromorphological evidence (Anderson et al, 2002) also point at continuous accretion during modern times.…”

Section: Landscape Evolution On the Basalt Flowsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both, vesicular horizons and stone pavements can be interpreted as environmental proxies. Dietze et al (2012b) inferred control parameters of Av horizon formation and properties from field data and laboratory experiments. They concluded that vesicular structure can form in a wide range of fine-grained sediments (i.e.…”

Section: Environmental Proxy Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Environmental history recorded in aeolian deposits under stone pavements, Mojave Desert, USA

Dietze

Lomax

et al. 2016

Quat. res.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Reconstructing the evolution of arid landscapes is challenged by limited availability of appropriate environmental archives. A wide-spread surface feature -stone pavement -traps aeolian fines and forms a special accretionary archive. Seven stone pavement-covered sections on basalt flows in the eastern Mojave Desert are condensed to a composite section, comprising five sedimentological units, supported by an OSL-based chronology. Three of the units are of accretionary nature and each is covered by a stone pavement. They were deposited >50.9-36.6 ka, <36.6-14.2 ka and <14.2 ka and are intimately coupled with the history of nearby Lake Mojave, which advances the current picture of regional aeolian activity. End-member modelling analysis of grain-size distributions yielded seven sediment transport regimes. The accretionary system operates in two modes: A) episodic formation of a stone pavement by lateral processes once a vesicular horizon has formed on a barren surface and B) accretion of dust and eventually burial of the clast layer. These findings improve current concepts about stone pavement evolution and their environmental proxy function in arid landscapes. Stone pavement-covered accretionary deposits are a new key archive that allows quantifying the relative importance of dust accretion, slope processes, soil formation and vegetation cover.

show abstract

Section: End-member Interpretationsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Landscape Evolution On the Basalt Flowsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Environmental history recorded in aeolian deposits under stone pavements, Mojave Desert, USA

Dietze

Lomax

et al. 2016

Quat. res.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Lichen cover generally increases with an increase in the amount of carbonate, gypsum, and/or silt in the soil . The importance of the silt content for vesicle formation is highlighted by Dietze et al (2012), who showed that vesicular horizons can be found in a large variety of texture classes under natural conditions, which, however, always have a high silt content. In soils with heavy physical crusting, the surface morphology of biocrusts is primarily controlled by soil physical and chemical characteristics, and the biological components have only a limited effect.…”

Section: Pedogenic Influencesmentioning

confidence: 97%

Composition and Macrostructure of Biological Soil Crusts

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Dietze et al . () present a review and experiment‐based evaluation of this and suggest further mechanisms of vesicular structure formation. Vesicles could be created during a few cycles of wetting and drying within a wide range of sedimentological and environmental properties.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alignment of stone‐pavement clasts by unconcentrated overland flow – implications of numerical and physical modelling

Dietze

Groth

Kleber

2013

Earth Surf Processes Landf

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The crucial role of stone pavements in arid environments for aeolian or alluvial processes and as numerical dating tools is increasingly acknowledged. This role is based on the assumption that stone pavements are stable landforms, formed gradually over time and predominantly by vertical processes. However, this is challenged by evidence of stone‐pavement clast reworking or burial. Bimodal, mostly slope aspect‐symmetrical clast orientation is a frequent phenomenon in various study areas. It implies that stone pavements may be influenced by unidirectional lateral processes besides vertical ones. Here, the finding of lateral processes contributing to stone‐pavement evolution is supported by numerical modelling and physical experiments. These unequivocally show that unconcentrated overland flow can transport clasts to form a closely packed stone mosaic with characteristics similar to those of natural stone pavements. The commonly observed length‐axes orientation angle of 40 ± 14° for natural stone‐pavement clasts is consistently reproduced by angle‐dependent force equilibrium. Monte Carlo runs confirm the natural scatter and allow characterization of the control parameters of clast orientation. The model explains up to 70% of the natural variance. It is further validated by flume experiments, which confirm model predictions of single object orientation angles. Experiments with multiple objects yield artificial stone pavements with properties similar to those found in the field. The unidirectional lateral process acting on natural stone pavements requires the presence of a vesicular horizon. This underlines the tight genetic coupling of this common epipedon feature and the clast cover. The presented findings highlight the role of stone pavements as process and environment proxies. However, stone pavements represent information since the last surface disturbance only. This has to be considered when using them as age indicators. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

show abstract

Formation mechanisms and control factors of vesicular soil structure

Cited by 28 publications

References 38 publications

Environmental history recorded in aeolian deposits under stone pavements, Mojave Desert, USA

Environmental history recorded in aeolian deposits under stone pavements, Mojave Desert, USA

Composition and Macrostructure of Biological Soil Crusts

Alignment of stone‐pavement clasts by unconcentrated overland flow – implications of numerical and physical modelling

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About