THE TREES ARE BACK! THE ON AGAIN, OFF AGAIN EXPOSURE OF A PALEOSOIL AND FOSSIL TREE STUMPS ALONG THE SURF ZONE OF FORT MORGAN PENINSULA, ALABAMA

Longshore drift and storm-enhanced erosion of beach facies along Fort Morgan Peninsula in coastal Alabama periodically exposes a peaty-paleosoil and entombed tree stumps along one portion of the beach. Radiocarbon dating of the wood at this site yielded an age of 2110 +/- 50 years. The paleosoil layer is relatively thin (25 cm) and when first exposed in early 2009 was limited in extent (3 m wide). A more recent exposure in December 2009 suggests that the original exposure was simply a fragment of a much larger layer that is now buried beneath modern beach sand. Fort Morgan Peninsula is characterized by a series of linear beach ridges separated by shallow rather swampy forested swales. The location of the peaty soil that we are studying is down strike of these swales and it is possible that it originally formed in this type of depositional setting. The current study is using grain size analysis to better characterize the sedimentology of the paleosoil and Total Station surveying techniques in an attempt to trace the distribution of the paleosoil from the exposure in the beach surf zone shoreward into the dune fields.