MSU home to 16,000-year-old sand dune

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Taking a usual route to class might mean walking on history as MSU researchers and students are discovering more things that lie beneath the grass, including a prehistoric sand dune.

The dune is located under a grove of pine trees between Demonstration Hall and Munn Ice Arena.

Samples of the sand were sent out to determine the dating of the dune and results came in at the end of August, anthropology professor and director of the Campus Archaeology Program Lynne Goldstein said.

Goldstein and geography professor Alan Arbogast helped determine the age of the dune and whether or not it had been disturbed since its formation.

“We’ve known it was a sand dune for a long time,” Goldstein said. “The question was … how much of it was in place, how much of it had been modified by MSU?”

Testing samples of the sand determined the dune is about 16,000 years old and has not been significantly disturbed throughout its history on MSU’s campus.

“We don’t often find things that predate MSU, but occasionally we do,” Goldstein said.

Daniel Tooman, an anthropology senior and intern for the Campus Archaeology Program, said this and other types of finds offer good research opportunities.

“There’s so much of the campus that’s preserved and you can’t see it,” he said. “You can be walking anywhere on campus and not know what’s under your feet.”

An expert on the formation of sand dunes, Arbogast said new facts about the dune can now be confirmed.

“We have confirmed that this thing is an ancient sand dune that is probably about 16,000 years old,” he said.

It might look like a big pile of dirt to most who pass by, but there are differences between a mound of dirt and a sand dune, Arbogast said.

“The prime difference is that a sand dune is a landform that develops when the wind blew the sand,” he said. “Wind also shapes the land as well.”

The dune, which is about 10 feet tall and an acre in size, was formed after a glacier began to melt.

“MSU’s campus was under a glacier for several thousand years,” he said. “This dune probably formed right after the ice started to melt away.”

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