Soil heterogeneity of an East and West facing ridge above timberline due to differences in snow and aeolian deposition

Abstract:

Hans Jenny’s soil forming factors—time, parent material, climate, topography, and organisms—represent the major components of his system to describe and quantify soil development. In almost all situations, it is difficult to hold even one of these factors constant while focusing on another factor; however, in our study site—the East and West side of a narrow North-South running ridge, above timberline in SE Wyoming—we can hold three factors nearly constant (time, parent material, and climate) and focus on how topography, in particular, has influenced the soil differences on the two sides. The East side is the leeside of prevailing and strong westerly winds and receives a large snow pack while the West is consistently snow-free during winter creating a very different moisture and soil temperature regime. The East receives aeolian dust deposition while the West loses surface material from wind scour. A standard chemical and physical analysis found that while the two sides are nearly identical textually, with a similar pH and low electrical conductivity, the East side is richer in minerals. During the short growing season, soil moisture results show that the West side is holding more water than the East side; however, the East side has a higher percentage of organic matter and is more shrub and forb rich. An isotope analysis shows that the C:N ratios are very similar on the two sides. Microbial biomass and functional groups will be analyzed in the soil samples as well as a seismic study conducted to quantity depth of soil to bedrock. Using all these results will help quantify the differences on the two sides of this narrow ridge and add to our understanding of fine-scale soil heterogeneity and its relationship to watershed hydrology.