Announcement of Final Thesis Defense Crop and Soil Science M.S. Degree: Mason Rutgers
April 10, 2026 4:00PM - 5:00PM
Date: Friday, April 10th, 2026
Time: 4:00 pm
Room: Geography Building Rm. 126
A PEDOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION OF AFFORESTED RELICT PRAIRIES IN NEWAYGO COUNTY, MICHIGAN
Members of the Examining Committee and their Department:
- Dr. Barret Wessel – Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences
- Dr. Randall Schaetzl – Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences
- Dr. Brian Teppen – Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences
ABSTRACT
Relict dry sand prairies in Lower Michigan are fragile ecosystems where soil development is strongly controlled by vegetation and disturbance, yet the rate and direction of pedogenic processes in these environments remain poorly understood. This thesis examines how pedogenic processes respond to nearly a century of coniferous afforestation within uneroded and severely eroded sandy upland Mollisols in Newaygo County, Michigan. Field investigations of soil morphology and laboratory analyses of pH, soil organic carbon, exchangeable base cations, and extractable Fe and Al were used to characterize pedogenic processes across intact prairie, afforested prairie, and intact forest ecosystems, as well as along geomorphic gradients of erosion and deposition within the Big Prairie Desert. Intact prairie soils exhibited thick, dark umbric epipedons dominated by melanization, with organic carbon and extractable Fe concentrated near the surface. Afforested prairie soils retained similar morphology but displayed early evidence of transformation, including greater acidity, Oi horizon development, and a salt-and-pepper appearance indicative of incipient leucinization. Oxalate-extractable Al was distributed deeper in afforested prairie soils than in prairie soils, consistent with early-stage mobilization. Forest soils showed stronger podzolization, with lower pH and greater subsurface accumulation of Fe and Al. In the Big Prairie Desert, wind erosion resulted in more than a meter of soil loss within blowouts and burial of A horizons beneath 58-59 cm of eolian sand within adjacent depositional lobes, while relatively uneroded soils on the leeward side of blowouts contained thinner mantles (12-13 cm) of eolian sand. Truncated soils exhibit minimal development within relatively unaltered parent materials, whereas buried soils show reduced organic carbon, greater pH, and altered Fe and Al distributions, reflecting isolation from contemporary pedogenesis. Overall, these soils demonstrated a shift from melanization towards podzolization under coniferous vegetation. Pedogenic response was relatively rapid but spatially variable, with erosion and vegetation change driving divergent soil development pathways. These findings highlight the vulnerability of sandy upland Mollisols and inform restoration of relict dry sand prairies in the Great Lakes region.
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