Twentieth-century fire suppression and forest management practices have come under increasing review as research sheds new light on natural fire occurrences, land management practices, and landscape dynamics prior to European settlement of western North America. Of particular importance is the long-term response of forest soil genesis and hill slope stability to fire. Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, is an ideal location to study the effects of fire on pedogenesis and forest ecology, given its extensive forest management history and the present-day need to preserve its unique archaeological resources. The Pony Fire of 2000 burned approximately 5,000 acres of largely piņon-juniper woodland along the southwestern border of Mesa Verde National Park. To identify the more permanent effects of fire on soil physical and chemical properties, samples were taken from an Aridic Paleustalf (Morefield series 3-6% slopes) at sites burned by the Pony fire, and from unburned sites. Samples were characterized for both chemical and physical properties. Results from x-ray diffraction and SEM-energy dispersive spectroscopy analyses were compared for burned and unburned forest soils to identify soil-mineralogical changes imparted by a high-intensity fire. These results have important implications not only for the understanding of long-term forest succession, pedogenetic, and geomorphologic processes of Mesa Verde National Park, but also for future land and archaeological resource management practices.
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See more of The ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meetings (November 6-10, 2005)