Dust Bowl Erosion

Manhandled Land - fertile soil goes off by carload lots. A common site during the Dust Bowl. The erosion in this picture was more an effect of poor farming practice than drought though. The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936 (in some areas until 1940). The phenomenon was caused by severe drought coupled with decades of extensive farming without crop rotation, fallow fields, cover crops or other techniques to prevent wind erosion. Deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains had displaced the natural deep-rooted grasses that normally kept the soil in place and trapped moisture even during periods of drought and high winds

Picture No

13345842

Media ID

47782756

Size

2982px x 3110px (2.6MB)

Credit

Usage Restrictions

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Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration