How Geology Swayed the Election

The above map, from the NY Times, shows the county by county results from the Nov. 5 elections.

Via Kottke. I seem to remember seeing something about this somewhere, but I don't know if the geoblogosphere has picked it up: the headline to the above-linked post is "Obama elected by "rich loamy soils" of Cretaceous seas." The article linked there has the somewhat less dramatic title, "The Black Belt: How Soil Types Determined the 2008 Election in the Deep South." In the article, the author, Christian McNeil, argues that the original designation "black belt" was in reference to the soil color. But this also corresponded to areas where slavery was most profitable, thus where the most were owned, and thus where the most cotton was produced. So following the Civil War, "the term seems to be used wholly in a political sense - that is, to designate the counties where the black people outnumber the white." (quotation from a linked article by Tullo)

So the soil type determined the distribution of African-Americans, which determined the political direction of county-by-county votes. What determined the soil type? Soil is a complex result of climate, the biosphere... and of course, rocks. Below is a map of the Selma Chalk, a Creataceous rock formation. So for those of you non-geology types who didn't already know it, Geology Rules! Even more striking is the correlation between the Cretaceous shoreline (as reconstructed by Professor of Geology Ron Blakey at the University of Northern Arizona- link within article) and the political map that leads this post. But I'm going to make you link through to see that one. As an aside, and not to toot my own horn, I had mentioned to someone else that the correlation between the pattern of voting in the south and the Appalachian-Ouachita structure was sort of odd- but I didn't take it any further than that. Mr McNeil has, and the result is fascinating.

Followup: after looking over more of the posts in this blog, I have happily subscribed. It's an interesting mix of geography, history, biology and environmental science. I've been trying to drop many of my more voluminous but less interesting subscriptions, and this blogger posts less, but each post is quite interesting. A keeper.