Processes responsible for the development of a pit and mound microrelief

Hummocky ground is a conspicuous feature of some cultivated pastures in the mountain forests of the Alps. In the German scientific literature, this pit and mound microrelief is termed “Buckelwiese” (literally: “hummocky meadow”) and is commonly interpreted as a fossil, Late Glacial relief of cryogenic origin. This paper suggests an alternative hypothesis, namely that relief formation was initiated by the uprooting of trees during storms. In the rootstock-pits, karst processes gradually amplified the initial relief. This alternative hypothesis is tested in a Buckelwiesen area of the Northern Limestone Alps, where pit-to-mound vertical relief amounts to 52 cm and mounds are 250–510 cm long and 170–270 cm wide, and the density of pits and mounds is 400 ha−1. Field investigations included a ground survey using a tacheometer and the excavation of a trench to check the internal structure of one pit-mound couple. The trench was subsequently used to estimate solution rates in the subsurface material of pits and mounds. Based on the results of the field measurements and two radiocarbon dates from the test site, the paper concludes that in the study area a treethrow event occurred between 1120 and 1280 AD. Subsequently, the pits created by the uprooted trees were deepened by limestone solution at a rate of 77.2 mm/1000 years. The reconstructed formation history of the microrelief of the study area is consistent with a Holocene origin, with rates of limestone dissolution as measured in the field and with the morphometry of the features themselves.