GEOLOGY AND ELECTION 2000

Maps of Presidential election returns for 2000 by county show a pattern in the southern U.S. that is immediately recognizable as a geologic feature. In the otherwise predominately pro-Bush South, a narrow band of pro-Gore counties arcs from eastern Mississippi across central Alabama and Georgia and into South Carolina. For most of its length this arc corresponds to the outcrop of mid and late Cretaceous sedimentary units. The arc can be traced with varying degrees of clarity in many maps of earlier election returns as well. The arc corresponds to a band of high black population and low white population but efforts to find obvious links to other economic or demographic indicators yield only marginal results. The arc shows no obvious correlations with age or population density. The arc is characterized by high poverty, below average farm productivity, emphasis on cotton production and above average tenant farming, but counties outside the arc often show the same characteristics to an equal or greater degree. Closer examination shows the arc actually consists of three segments. The Mississippi – Alabama segment corresponds to the Black Belt, named for its dark calcareous soils. Historical maps clearly show slavery and cotton production migrating north from southern Alabama and spreading along the Black Belt. In Georgia the Cretaceous outcrop is narrow and discontinuous, and often outlines a boundary between demographic and economic trends in the Piedmont as opposed to those on the Coastal Plain. Here the Cretaceous units appear to mark a zone that remained economically marginal while cotton production shifted from the Piedmont to the Coastal Plain. In South Carolina the arc actually corresponds to Tertiary units but again seems to be a zone that remained economically marginal in the face of shifting economic trends. What appears at first glance to be a straightforward social expression of a geologic feature turns out to be a very complex entity that involves not only soils, geology and physiography, but also the growth of slavery and subsequent emigration of blacks from the South. Additional factors also include changes in agricultural practices related both to the boll weevil epidemic of the early 20th Century and to the adoption of chemical fertilizers at about the same time.