See more from this Division: Topical Sessions
See more from this Session: The Origin of Mima Mounds and Similar Micro-Relief Features: Multidisciplinary Perspectives
Abstract:
We demonstrate how predictive biodynamic principles, with embedded biomantle and process vector elements, applied to field observations and laboratory data (particle size, pH, organic matter, C-14 measurements) reveal unequivocal topographic and soil-landform signatures of life. We demonstrate how this approach aids in resolving one long-standing, cross-disciplinary, extremely complex biodynamic issue -- the origin of Mima (pimple-prairie) mounds.
Our primary mound work was at Mima Prairie in Washington State, and Diamond Grove Prairie in Missouri. Supplemental investigations were made at various Mima moundfields across western North America over a multi-decadal timeframe. Moundfields were visited and revisited, examined and reexamined, some multiple times, in several cases annually and seasonally over many years. New moundfields were predictively discovered. The sum of our collective research indicates that while Mima mounds are inherently polygenetic in origin, like landforms in general, they are predominantly point-centered, locally thickened biomantles produced through the biodynamic activity of small vertebrates. The process mainly involves repeated biotransfers and biosortings by the supremely fossorial members of Geomyidae. (A synthesis of the Koons-Dalquest-Scheffer-Price-Cox model of burrowing by these animals is supported.)
An unexpected bonus of our mound research was to shed bright confirmatory light on still another long-standing and equally contentious soil-geomorphic issue -- the predominantly biodynamic origin of stone-layers (stone lines) in soils.
See more from this Division: Topical Sessions
See more from this Session: The Origin of Mima Mounds and Similar Micro-Relief Features: Multidisciplinary Perspectives