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Age and Properties of Peorian Loess and Buried Paleosols in Southwestern Wisconsin¹

ABSTRACT

Seaton silt loam in southwestern Wisconsin was found to have formed in the coarser textured windward portions of the same loess deposit as have Fayette and Tama silt loams. This loess is as much as 19 feet thick on ridge crests and is underlain by two paleosols at some localities. The upper paleosol is a silt loam which resembles Farmdale loess or silt both in morphology and in stratigraphy, and which contains fragments of spruce charcoal with a radiocarbon age of 29,400 ± 700 years before present. The lower paleosol is truncated and the B horizons which remain are reddish clays underlain by dolomite. The dense uppermost B horizon contained 7.82% free Fe₂O₃ and the lower B possessed strongly developed fine angular blocky structure. Mass wasting has occurred extensively on ridge flanks.

X-ray diffraction analyses show the silt loam upper paleosol to be more highly weathered than the overlying calcareous loess, and the lower paleosol to be more vermiculitic than residual clay derived from the same bedrock formation at other localities.

The radiocarbon date of the spruce charcoal is somewhat older than dates obtained from Farmdale deposits in Illinois or Iowa, and is also older than ages of overlying loess calculated by G. H. Robinson from depth of carbonate leaching.

¹ Contribution from the Department of Soils and Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Publication approved by the Director. Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey and by the Director, Wisconsin Agr. Exp. Sta. Presented before Div. V, Soil Science Society of America, at St. Louis, Mo., Nov. 28, 1961.

² Formerly Research Assistant, and Associate Professor of Soils, respectively.

Received for publication June 11, 1962. Accepted for publication October 11, 1962.