Morphologic
Evidence of Lamellae Forming Directly
from Thin,
Clayey Bedding Planes in a Dune
Randall J. Schaetzl
An excavation in a sand dune in
southern Michigan revealed numerous, thin (< 3 mm) clay-enriched strata
between otherwise weakly stratified, clean, fine sand deposits. The parallelism of both the sandy and clayey
strata suggest that they have direct geologic origins, having been deposited
during formation of the dune. Although
the clay-enriched strata and the intervening sandy layers are both within the
sand textural class, the former contained between 3.0% and 5.4% clay, and the
latter < 1.8% clay. In areas of
preferred leaching, such as below vertical root traces, the clayey strata thin
out and become absent, or bend downward, become wavy and contorted and take
on the appearance of typical pedogenic lamellae. These observations support a theory of lamellae genesis that is
both pedogenic and geogenic. This sedimentary
strata may be pedogenically transformed into features that would normally be
described as (entirely pedogenic) lamellae.
Thus, many thin lamellae in Pleistocene-aged soils may simply be
deformed and pedogenically altered sedimentary strata. This conclusion has implications for the
nature and cyclicity of clay deposition in environments where thin lamellae are
common in sandy soils.
2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.