SOIL GEOMORPHOLOGY (coined by Ruhe, 1974) “The study of soils and their use in evaluating landform evolution and age, landform stability, surface processes, and past climates” (Margaret Berry) New: Schaetzl and Anderson (2005); Holliday (2004, 2006) Petecasso in Lu and Godt, 2013

SOIL GEOMORPHOLOGY—EARLY DAYS Jenny USGS-MILITARY GEOLOGY UNIT Morrison Richmond HuntThorp Ruhe (Battleship Iowa) 1941 book ClORPT

SOIL GEOMORPHOLOGY—LATER DAYS 1965 INQUA GSAFOP Tonkin Gerson MIDCONTINENT 1965 INQUA FIELD TRIPS OVERSEAS VISITORS J. FryeRuhe

UNIVERSITIES AND FAMILY TREES—1960s on FRONT RANGE AND PIEDMONT WORK Les McFadden U. of New Mexico Francis Hole U. of Wisconsin Don Johnson U. of Illinois USGSUniversity of Colorado

VERY PRODUCTIVE PROGRAMS-USDA IOWA-50s and 60s Ruhe and Daniels Yarmouth-Sangamon buried soil Late SangamonLate Wisconsin South of Adair, Iowa Modern

VERY PRODUCTIVE PROGRAMS-USDA DESERT RESEARCH PROJECT (NM)—MOST PRODUCTIVE--60s and 70s Hawley Hawley and Gile Gile Plus Grossman, Peterson, Ruhe

VERY PRODUCTIVE PROGRAMS-USGS ACROSS USA, BY USGS AND UNIVERSITIES--70s and 80s TO ESTIMATE AGES OF LANDSCAPES Plus Machette, Markewich, Pavich MarchandHarden SOIL DETOUR TO TAXONOMY AND CLASSIFICATION

SOIL-FORMING FACTORS: PARENT MAT’L (P) SimpleComplex Layers—geologic vs. pedogenic Dust Local vs. global Morrison (1967) soil-forming intervals become dust Reheis dust traps Dust (A) Weathering (B) A B MAP (mm) Pye (1987)

PYE ILLUSTRATED ALLUVIUM (Israel) LOESS/TILL (New Zealand) EPISODIC LOESS/BURIED SOILS (China) THIN DUST/CARBONATE REEF (Mare) ARID TROPICS

FACTORS: TIME(T) QUANTIFY PROPERTIES GLOBAL TIME TEMPLATE PATHWAYS: MODELS Progressive-regressive (Johnson, Watson-Stegner, 1987) Thresholds (Muhs, 1984) Martinson et al., 1987 ALL CLIMATES COVERED

TIME AND CLIMATE LAB DATA Vidic (1997) Clay mimics Fed Age (years) PDI USGS QUATERNARY MAPPING Shroba et al., 2014 from McFadden, 1988 Vidic, 1997 FIELD DATA

TIME AND CLIMATE SUMMARY Maximum ~ 60% clay, 10R (1 + Myr SE USA, Colorado Piedmont) Fe

DRY CLIMATES DRY, HOT Stage = age Rate varies with ppt, dust influx, etc (greater during interglacials) Gile and Grossman, 1979; Gile and others, 1981 Machette (1985):

SOILS DETECTING CLIMATE CHANGE Yaalon’s (1971) persistent horizons: good results with CaCO 3 Overlapping wet-dry properties (Btk) Modellers arrive Move water curve to right Now run this for 2 Myr of climate change (Reheis, 1987) McFadden and Tinsley (1985) Mayer and others, 1988

FACTOR: TOPOGRAPHY (R) WET CATENAS—NEW ZEALAND Massive chemical redistribution and removal O E BsBs C Tonkin and others, 1977 Young and others, 1979 Birkeland, ka

FACTOR: TOPOGRAPHY (R) DRY--IDAHO 20 ka 140 ka Clay ~mimics Fe Profiles develop while slopes flatten Use to estimate slope stability Berry, 1987 Fed

APPLICATIONS—ARCHEOLOGY RUSSIA SOILS ESSENTIAL FOR STRATIGRAPHY SUGGEST AGES AND ENVIRONMENT LUBBOCK, TX (Holliday, 1985)

APPLICATIONS— NEOTECTONICS (McCalpin, 2009) Catena limits age (McCalpin and Berry, 1996) Machette (1978) % CaCO 3 Machette, 1978 BURIED DOWNFAULTED SOILS

SOILS AND YUCCA MTN REPOSITORY CLIMATE CHANGE GROUNDWATER FLOW Taylor, 1986 Taylor and Buckins, 1995 Quade and Cerling, 1990

SOILS AND YUCCA MTN REPOSITORY VOLCANISMFAULTING Wells et al., 1990 NTS AND YUCCA MTN

NEW ZEALAND MODEL—EROSION RATE vs SOIL RESIDENCE TIME WESTEAST Dominant soil profile: A/R A/C Residence time: 200 yr A/Bw/C kyr Tonkin and Basher, 1990

SUMMARY We have… Chinese fortune cookie You will step on the soil of many countries …chased down many of Jenny’s Factors Jenny was a visionary and would be proud to have influenced the direction of soil geomorphology

COLORADO FRONT RANGE-estimating age for surfaces and hillslopes Hillslope Surface Hillslope Soil development greater with lower canyon incision rates (Dethier et al., 2012) Soil on surface vs. canyon incision rate (0.15 m/kyr) means relief is increasing Can “date” (residence time) most hillslopes