BOULDER, Colo.—Studies of muck from the bottoms of alpine lakes in southwestern Colorado reveal the West wasn’t always so dusty.
Data from a study led by University of Colorado, Boulder geologist Jason Neff shows the dust layers that settled in the bottom of the lakes were much thicker after railroads broke through the West. With the technology, more ranching, farming and mining took place.
Findings from the new research were published in Sunday’s Nature Geoscience.
“From about 1860 to 1900, the dust deposition rates shot up so high that we initially thought there was a mistake in our data,” said Neff, who estimates it’s four to five times dustier today than it was 200 years ago.
Neff led the team that pulled cores of muck from the lakes and measured the dust layers for the past 5,000 years. Aside from the thicker layers since about 1860, researchers found the layers contained an increase in chemicals associated with human activity.
