Aeolian sediment fluxes measured over various plant/soil complexes in the Chihuahuan desert

Measurements of horizontal flux of sediment were performed over the period 1998-2005 at different vegetated areas within the Jornada Long Term Ecological Research site. Sediment trap samples were collected during successive nominal 3-month periods at 15 sites: three independent sites at each of the five dominant plant/soil complexes encountered in this part of the Chihuahuan desert (mesquite, creosote, tarbush, grama grass, and playa grass). Mesquite vegetated areas have significantly higher sediment fluxes than the four other plant/soil complexes. The other types of vegetation complexes yield sediment fluxes that cannot be statistically distinguished from each other. An analysis of the temporal variability of the sediment fluxes indicates that only the annual sediment fluxes from mesquite sites are correlated with the annual occurrence of high wind speeds. Examination of the vertical profile of the fluxes of sediment and the fast response Sensit measurements confirms that a local saltation mechanism is responsible for sediment fluxes measured at mesquite sites. However, the local saltation mechanism cannot explain sediment fluxes measured on nonmesquite sites. Sediment fluxes at nonmesquite sites are only rarely carried in from upwind sources. Additionally, our data for sediment flux showed that off-site (drifting in) flux of sediment cannot explain the differences of mesquite and nonmesquite sediment fluxes. We suggest dust devils to be the mechanism that causes sediment emissions at both nonmesquite and mesquite lands, but their effect is trivial compared to the fluxes caused by mesoscale meteorological winds at the mesquite sites.