AN INVESTIGATION OF HYDROGEOLOGIC, STRATIGRAPHIC, AND STRUCTURAL CONTROLS ON ACER GRANDIDENTATUM COMMUNITIES IN A KARST LANDSCAPE, OWL MOUNTAIN PROVINCE, FORT HOOD MILITARY INSTALLATION, TEXAS

摘要

The Owl Mountain Province is located within the Fort Hood Military Installation, an approximately 880 km2 installation established in the 1940s in Bell and Coryell counties, Texas, which has undergone extensive land use changes associated with military training, maintaining much of the vegetation in early succession. This study investigates thelithologic, stratigraphic, and structural controls on the hydrologic, hydrogeologic, and geomorphologic evolution of the Owl Mountain Province as expressed by mesic vegetation communities, including Pleistocene relicts Acer grandidentatum, within karst terrains. These systems exhibit complexly overprinted speleogenetic evolutions within a dynamic groundwater regime resulting from regional climate shifts throughout the Neogene that have been complicated by extensive anthropogenic modifications as a result of urbanization, agriculture, and expanding populations in the region. Landscape evolution and the resulting vegetation patterns, examined through the prism of hydrologic and geologic principles, are investigated throughout the inter-disciplinary nature of this study and used as the foundation for the explanation of the floristic phenomena observed within the Owl Mountain Province.