Paleodune control

In this post, we present the result of the soil and geomorphological control and restoration work carried out on the land affected by the route of the Branches of the Northeastern Zone of the Mancha Plain (Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Toledo and Albacete) whose promoter is the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment, and is being implemented by Accioná Infrastructures, S.A.

Paleodunes are forms of accumulation of sand grains and silt granules, sedimentated due to the decrease in wind speed that carried the detrital materials (sand and silt), a process of transport and wind deposition (air masses as a transport agent) that did not exist today and which formed accumulations of sandstone sediments, consisting of a main ridge and two well-defined flanks or slopes on both sides of it. Associated with these sandy accumulations with clearly defined ridges (dunes or paleodunes), there are usually other sedimentary forms of aeolian origin, called “aeolian mantles”, where the sedimentation of sandy grains does not outline a ridge and are deposited on a more or less flat surface.

The main effects of works to drive dune positional forms are, the dismantling of the land forms that make up the landscape characteristic of a given region, which can be referred to as geomorphological impact, and, the stratigraphic inversion of the horizons or soil layers s.s., which causes the loss of fertility or rather, the destruction of characteristic soils for the development of psammophilic vegetation or similar to sandy soils (sandstones, FAO-UNESCO), or soil impact, is that is, impact on soil capacity for the development of a given plant community.

To avoid the above-mentioned conditions, apart from leaving no embankment, or excavation slope after the completion of the work, restoring all the pre-existing topography, prior to the opening of the ditches of the pipeline, it is necessary to carry out a recognition of the soil profiles (analysis of the soil profiles), for technical assistance on excavation or extraction and the orderly replacement of the stratigraphy of the terrain and the soil profile (of the ground s.s.), by opening calicatas along the route of the conduction, which guarantees the persistence of the deposit relationships between the different layers or horizons that form the soil (or soil) profile, limiting the mixing and stratigraphic destructuring of the soil s.s., of these unique geomorphological elements.