autumn

autumn
spearfish creek - south dakota

07 June 2007

loess




i tried to find a bigger map but got tired of searching. i was thinking about loess today because the wind for the last several days has been blowing between 30 and 40 miles an hour pretty constantly. which means top soil is being blown eastward and being deposited somewhere else. the desposits of this fine dust makes up loess hills. there is more in nebraska than i guessed. everyone always mentions the loess hills in iowa along the missouri river and the loess hills in china. so i was surprised to see so much in nebraska. we are probably in the dark red area here. but at the rate the wind is blowing we won't have any left. well it will take a while and at the same time more is blowing in from colorado and western nebraska. loess soil is very fertile.

it is difficult to really compare actual area covered. sorry.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

interesting. i didn't know the dust had a name. i liked this a lot. (hehehhe look i used a dead word)