David Bustos

David Bustos
National Park Service | NPS · White Sands National Monument

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49
Publications
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672
Citations

Publications

Publications (49)
Preprint
Full-text available
Sand dune morphology is indicative of complex system interactions at a wide range of spatial and temporal scales that govern dune topographic structure. We created an object-oriented topographic framework based on slope attitude, curvature, and contextual analysis to map and characterize sand dune morphology at White Sands National Park, New Mexico...
Article
Microscopic green algae are severely understudied compared to their plant relatives. Algae from desert soil crusts are of special interest because they may have unique adaptations to the harsh arid habitats. Algae inhabiting gypsum substrates are especially poorly understood, and our study was the first to investigate the diversity of green algae i...
Article
Full-text available
In recent years the discovery of paleontological and archaeological resources exposed because of natural disasters and rapid erosion—mostly linked to climate change—has occurred at a phenomenal rate. Each year wildfires, floods, landsides, retreating glaciers, snow melt, soil erosion, and receding lakes and reservoirs are uncovering valuable resou...
Article
Human footprints at White Sands National Park, New Mexico, USA, reportedly date to between ~23,000 and 21,000 years ago according to radiocarbon dating of seeds from the aquatic plant Ruppia cirrhosa . These ages remain controversial because of potential old carbon reservoir effects that could compromise their accuracy. We present new calibrated ¹⁴...
Article
Knowledge of the tropical terrestrial cyanobacterial flora from the African continent is still limited. Of 31 strains isolated from soil and subaerial samples collected in Lagos State, Nigeria, three were found to be in the Oculatellaceae, including two species in a new genus. Subsequently, isolates from microbial mats in White Sands National Park...
Article
Full-text available
The White Sands dune field is the largest gypsum dune system in the world, derived from deflation of paleo-Lake Otero deposits. Understanding the timing of initial dune construction, and therefore lake deflation, is critical for understanding regional landscape evolution, including the history of lake desiccation. The onset of dune construction is...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction In dryland systems, biological soil crusts (biocrusts) can occupy large areas of plant interspaces, where they fix carbon following rain. Although distinct biocrust types contain different dominant photoautotrophs, few studies to date have documented carbon exchange over time from various biocrust types. This is especially true for gyp...
Article
Bennett et al. (2021, Science 373, 1528–1531) reported that ancient human footprints discovered in White Sands National Park, New Mexico date to between ∼23,000 and 21,000 years ago. Haynes (2022, PaleoAmerica, this issue) proposes two alternate hypotheses to explain the antiquity of the footprints. One is that they were made by humans crossing ove...
Article
Madsen et al . question the reliability of calibrated radiocarbon ages associated with human footprints discovered recently in White Sands National Park, New Mexico, USA. On the basis of the geologic, hydrologic, stratigraphic, and chronologic evidence, we maintain that the ages are robust and conclude that the footprints date to between ~23,000 an...
Article
Early footsteps in the Americas Despite a plethora of archaeological research over the past century, the timing of human migration into the Americas is still far from resolved. In a study of exposed outcrops of Lake Otero in White Sands National Park in New Mexico, Bennett et al . reveal numerous human footprints dating to about 23,000 to 21,000 ye...
Article
Human tracks at White Sands National Park record more than one and a half kilometres of an out- and-return journey and form the longest Late Pleistocene-age double human trackway in the world. An adolescent or small adult female made two trips separated by at least several hours, carrying a young child in at least one direction. Despite giant groun...
Poster
Understanding the route(s) and timing of human colonisation of the Americas has become something of a scientific obsession; the last chapter in the ‘Out of Africa’ story. It is a story linked with the end-Pleistocene extinction of megafauna and therefore potentially the start of the Anthropocene. The role of Paleoindian foragers in the extinction o...
Article
Full-text available
Footprint evidence of human-megafauna interactions remains extremely rare in the archaeological and palaeontological records. Recent work suggests ancient playa environments may hold such evidence, though the prints may not be visible. These so-called “ghost tracks” comprise a rich archive of biomechanical and behavioral data that remains mostly un...
Article
Implicit in any biomechanical analysis of tracks (footprints), whatever the animal, is the assumption that depth distribution within the track reflects the applied plantar pressure in some way. Here we describe sub-track deformation structures produced by Proboscidea (probably Mammuthus columbi) at White Sands National Monument (WHSA) in New Mexico...
Article
Tracks and trackways of a range of Pleistocene megafauna can be found in White Sands National Monument, New Mexico, U.S.A. These tracks occur is several forms, not all of which are visible and some of which are only intermittently visible depending on lighting and moisture conditions. Here we present the result of a successful test of cesium vapor...
Article
Full-text available
Predator-prey interactions revealed by vertebrate trace fossils are extremely rare. We present footprint evidence from White Sands National Monument in New Mexico for the association of sloth and human trackways. Geologically, the sloth and human trackways were made contemporaneously, and the sloth trackways show evidence of evasion and defensive b...
Article
Full-text available
Predator-prey interactions revealed by vertebrate trace fossils are extremely rare. We present footprint evidence from White Sands National Monument in New Mexico for the association of sloth and human trackways. Geologically, the sloth and human trackways were made contemporaneously, and the sloth trackways show evidence of evasion and defensive b...
Article
Full-text available
Predator-prey interactions revealed by vertebrate trace fossils are extremely rare. We present footprint evidence from White Sands National Monument in New Mexico for the association of sloth and human trackways. Geologically, the sloth and human trackways were made contemporaneously, and the sloth trackways show evidence of evasion and defensive b...
Conference Paper
It has long been suggested that White Sands, the Earth’s largest gypsum dune field and an analog for Mars, is sourced from adjacent ephemeral Lake Lucero. However, lacustrine processes resulting in the formation of gypsum remain poorly understood. A study of this system was undertaken to determine if changes in this sediment source could impact the...
Article
Full-text available
In the world's largest gypsum dunefield (White Sands National Monument, New Mexico), modern vertebrate burrows occur in a variety of sub-environments, which include (in a downwind direction): vegetation-anchored coppice dunes or bare surfaces adjacent to barchans, sparsely vegetated transitional interdunes, densely vegetated blowout sections of par...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
While the dynamics of groundwater evaporation are well known, it is still challenging to reconstruct the water patterns in areas where water is not available anymore. We selected a specific location in White Sands National Monument (WSNM), New Mexico, to validate a method to extract information from hydrated minerals regarding past groundwater evap...
Chapter
Full-text available
High-resolution geophysical methods, such as ground-penetrating radar (GPR) imaging, are increasingly applied to ichnological research. Large vertebrate and invertebrate burrows and tracks can be detected and resolved using center frequencies of > 400 MHz. Geophysical images of bioturbation structures in siliciclastic, carbonate, and evaporite (gyp...
Article
Intraguild predation (IGP) is an extreme form of competition that involves a dominant predator (IG predator), a subordinate predator that is also a superior exploitative competitor (IG prey), and their shared prey. Theory predicts three possible equilibria, which parallel increasing resource enrichment: exclusion of the IG predator, stable coexiste...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In 2005, a large quantity of the mineral gypsum was unexpectedly identified on Mars in the high latitude dune sands of Olympia Undae [1]. Because gypsum is formed in the presence of liquid water, the discovery of this extensive deposit has important implications for the climatic and sedimentary history of the currently cold and dry north polar regi...
Article
The fossilized tracks and trackways located within the late Pleistocene deposits in and around White Sands National Monument were formed primarily by mammalian megafauna and are preserved in the marginal playa deposits of a pair of ancient lakes, Lake Lucero and Lake Otero. Radiocarbon dates obtained from these deposits have indicated ages between...
Article
Full-text available
Little was known about the Lepidoptera fauna at White Sands National Monument or Carlsbad Caverns National Park, both in the Chihuahuan Desert of southern New Mexico, before 2006 when the National Park Service initiated studies of the Lepidoptera, especially moths. Many species of moths were captured in black-light traps. Cisthene perrosea (Dyar) (...
Article
The Estancia, White Sands, Guadalupe and Cuatrociénegas Dune Fields are among the largest known aeolian gypsum sand-dune accumulations on Earth and occupy closed-drainage basins within the Rio Grande Rift. High sedimentation rates of lacustrine gypsum occur in topographic depressions within the closed basins. The gypsum accumulations result from lo...
Article
Full-text available
Dome-like structures up to 3 m in height, composed predominantly of coarse crystals of selenite gypsum, occur on the surface of Alkali Flat, a saline playa lake in White Sands National Monument, New Mexico. The structures were investigated using field observations, aerial images, and geochemical methods. The domes are inferred to be remnants of lak...
Article
Full-text available
The white gypsum dune ecosystem in the Tularosa Basin in south central New Mexico is the largest gypsum dune field on earth, covering 712.25 km2. White Sands National Monument in Otero County, New Mexico, protects approximately 40%, 297.85 km2, of this dune field. In 2006 the US National Park Service initiated a long term study of the Lepidoptera a...
Article
New morphological features (e.g., cross-bedding strata, bright patches), revealed by HiRISE for the gypsum-rich Olympia Undae Dune Field, appear to indicate the change(s) in paleoenvironmental conditions likely controlled by climate fluctuations in the North Pole of Mars.
Article
Three aspects of White Sands gypsum dunes evolution relating to climate variation are discussed in comparison to Olimpia Undae gypsum-rich dunes on Mars: gypsum source, groundwater discharge into interdunes areas, and desiccation of dunes.

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