Sediment mobility and bed armoring in the St Clair River: insights from hydrodynamic modeling

The lake levels in Lake Michigan‐Huron have recently fallen to near historical lows, as has the elevation difference between Lake Michigan‐Huron compared to Lake Erie. This decline in lake levels has the potential to cause detrimental impacts on the lake ecosystems, together with social and economic impacts on communities in the entire Great Lakes region. Results from past work suggest that morphological changes in the St Clair River, which is the only natural outlet for Lake Michigan‐Huron, could be an appreciable factor in the recent trends of lake level decline. A key research question is whether bed erosion within the river has caused an increase in water conveyance, therefore, contributed to the falling lake level. In this paper, a numerical modeling approach with field data is used to investigate the possibility of sediment movement in the St Clair River and assess the likelihood of morphological change under the current flow regime. A two‐dimensional numerical model was used to study flow structure, bed shear stress, and sediment mobility/armoring over a range of flow discharges. Boundary conditions for the numerical model were provided by detailed field measurements that included high‐resolution bathymetry and three‐dimensional flow velocities. The results indicate that, without considering other effects, under the current range of flow conditions, the shear stresses produced by the river flow are too low to transport most of the coarse bed sediment within the reach and are too low to cause substantial bed erosion or bed scour. However, the detailed maps of the bed show mobile bedforms in the upper St Clair River that are indicative of sediment transport. Relatively high shear stresses near a constriction at the upstream end of the river and at channel bends could cause local scour and deposition. Ship‐induced propeller wake erosion also is a likely cause of sediment movement in the entire reach. Other factors that may promote sediment movement, such as ice cover and dredging in the lower river, require further investigation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance of Sample Preparation for Determination of Gold in Samples of Geological Origin

We investigate the performance of sample preparation of gold ores using vibratory (bowl, ring and puck type) mills in common use in mineral analytical laboratories. The main criteria for effective grinding are using reduced grinding charge masses ≤ ca. 50% of nominal bowl capacity and using a grinding aid to prevent caking. We show that gold particles of millimetre scale can be comminuted to ≤ 100 µm by grinding in silica flour, bauxite, synthetic carborundum, or mixtures of silica and these materials using times of up to 5 min and that 95% < 50 µm is achievable with extended grinding. This suggests that modified grinding techniques can be used to make sample masses ≤ 5 g viable for routine determination of gold in geological samples. We also demonstrate homogenisation of a gold‐bearing copper sulfide mineral flotation concentrate alone and in mixtures with silica by extended grinding at reduced charge masses. To support this work, we develop a convenient new benchmark of gold ore sample preparation performance ‘G’, an apparent maximum gold particle size interpolated from replicate analytical variance in order to overcome the limitations of laborious sieve fraction analysis of gold particle size. We show useful agreement between G and sieve fraction analysis of gold particle size in samples and test the viability of G experimentally and by analysis of literature data.     

What is suspended sediment?

Suspended sediment is conventionally regarded as that sediment transported by a fluid that it is fine enough for turbulent eddies to outweigh settling of the particles through the fluid. Early work in the fluvial field attributed suspension to turbulence, and led to the notion of a critical threshold for maintaining sediment in suspension. However, research on both turbulence structures and the interactions between suspended sediment and bedforms in rivers has shown a more complex story and, although there appear to have been no studies of the impact of bedforms on aeolian suspended sediment concentrations, turbulent flow structures and transport rates of saltating particles have been shown to be affected. This research indicates that suspended sediment neither travels with the same velocity as the flow in which it is suspended, nor is it likely to remain in suspension in perpetuity, even under conditions of steady flow or in unsteady flow the where dimensionless critical threshold is permanently exceeded. Rather, like bedload, it travels in a series of hops, and is repeatedly deposited on the bed where it remains until it is re‐entrained. Is there, therefore, a qualitative difference between suspended and saltating sediment, or is it just a quantitative difference in the size of the jump length and the frequency of re‐entrainment? It is our contention that the distinction of suspension as a separate class of sediment transport is both arbitrary and an unhelpful anthropocentric artefact. If we recognize that sediment transport is a continuum and applies to any fluid medium rather than split into different “processes” based on arbitrary thresholds and fluids, then recognizing the continuity will enable development of an holistic approach sediment transport, and thus sediment‐transport models that are likely to be viable across a wider range of conditions than hitherto. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A transport‐distance approach to scaling erosion rates: 3. Evaluating scaling characteristics of Mahleran

In the two previous papers of this series, we demonstrated how a novel approach to erosion modelling (Mahleran – Model for Assessing Hillslope‐Landscape Erosion, Runoff And Nutrients) provided distinct advantages in terms of process representation and explicit scaling characteristics when compared with existing models. A first evaluation furthermore demonstrated the ability of the model to reproduce spatial and temporal patterns of erosion and their particle‐size characteristics on a large rainfall‐simulation plot. In this paper, we carry out a more detailed evaluation of the model using monitored erosion events on plots of different size. The evaluation uses four plots of 21·01, 115·94, 56·84 and 302·19 m², with lengths of 4·12, 14·48, 18·95 and 27·78 m, respectively, on similar soils to the rainfall‐simulation plot, for which runoff and erosion were monitored under natural rainfall. Although the model produces the correct ranking of the magnitude of erosion events, it performs less well in reproducing the absolute values and particle‐size distributions of the eroded sediment. The implications of these results are evaluated in terms of requirements for process understanding and data for parameterization of improved soil‐erosion models. We suggest that there are major weaknesses in the current understanding and data underpinning existing models. Consequently, a more holistic re‐evaluation is required that produces functional relationships for different processes that are mutually consistent, and that have appropriate parameterization data to support their use in a wide range of environmental conditions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

40Ar/39Ar thermochronology using alkali feldspars: real thermal history or mathematical mirage of microtexture?

The Multiple Diffusion Domain (MDD) theory of Ar loss, based on the ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar method, has been used to obtain thermal histories, over tens of millions of years, in the range 500 °C to near-surface temperatures, of alkali feldspars from slowly cooled geological environments and recovered in situ from sedimentary basins and geothermal systems. It assumes that Ar diffuses in Nature, over geological time, from the same domains, and by the same processes, that control its diffusion during laboratory step-heating experiments. Mathematically the model has many stringent requirements: the domains must form at T above those being modelled and must remain unchanged during geological time and during step heating, must not interact, must occur in discrete size ranges sharing one simple geometrical shape, contain no compositional gradients in ⁴⁰K, and release Ar into an infinite reservoir. We describe the nature of possible diffusion domains, and the fast pathways for diffusion between them, known to exist in alkali feldspars from direct electron microscopic observations, and explore their time–temperature evolution, based on established phase behaviour, both over geological time and during step heating. Strain-controlled microtextures, whose morphology is controlled by the minimization of coherency strain energy, do not provide fast pathways for Ar loss, and behave as crystallographically complex but single domains for Ar. Subregular dislocations may form over a range of T in some strain-controlled intergrowths, but in Nature the majority form closed loops and do not provide pathways to the crystal surface. Deuteric microtextures cut across strain-controlled microtextures, and are composed of microporous subgrain and grain mosaics with many pathways and a wide spectrum of possible domain sizes and shapes. The deuterically altered zones provide pathways for Ar diffusion out of the crystal, although some Ar is retained in fluid inclusions. All microtextures likely to define diffusion domains form below 500 °C, over a range of T and (in slowly cooled rocks) of times. The most important involve fluid–feldspar reactions, which can reset Ar, and continue to surface T. Feldspars in geothermal systems and young sedimentary basins are subject to ongoing chemical and microtextural changes. Because the microtextures are metastable during step-heating experiments in the T range over which most Ar is released, domains and pathways for rapid diffusion of Ar between domains will be significantly modified during step heating, particularly above 750 °C, when departures from a simple Arrhenius diffusion law are most marked. Pre-melting is likely to be an important cause of complexity in Ar loss behaviour. Few, if any, of the requirements of the MDD model are met, and we conclude that thermal histories cannot be obtained from alkali feldspars using this method. Received: 21 September 1998 / Accepted: 1 March 1999     

Salinity history of coastal marshes reconstructed from diatom remains

Sediment cores were collected from three Louisiana coastal marsh ponds, dated with radioisotopes, and analyzed for diatom remains to determine if long-term salinity changes were evident in the sediment record. A diatom-based salinity index formulated from a statistical comparison of available salinity data and changing diatom assemblages demonstrated that diatom remains appear to preserve salinity signals in coastal brackish and salt marsh environments. The salinity index was applied to sediment cores spanning the late 1600s to the 1990s and provided a more complete record of salinity than field data, which were temporally and spatially incomplete. The salinity reconstructions indicated that salinity has increased at two sites and decreased at a third since the early 1900s. The salinity changes are less than 1‰ per decade in all cases, and may be due to natural variability as depicted by the wide range of salinities observed between the late 1600s and 1900. Salinity regimes may be very localized (<2 km from a hydrologic source), indicating single-site studies may not be applicable to regional inferences. This study demonstrates that diatoms can be used to reconstruct past salinity in coastal marsh environments and can provide a useful tool with which to study the changing hydrology of river-influenced ecosystems.     

Extreme flood‐driven fluvial bank erosion and sediment loads: direct process measurements using integrated Mobile Laser Scanning (MLS) and hydro‐acoustic techniques

This methods paper details the first attempt at monitoring bank erosion, flow and suspended sediment at a site during flooding on the Mekong River induced by the passage of tropical cyclones. We deployed integrated mobile laser scanning (MLS) and multibeam echo sounding (MBES), alongside acoustic Doppler current profiling (aDcp), to directly measure changes in river bank and bed at high (~0.05 m) spatial resolution, in conjunction with measurements of flow and suspended sediment dynamics. We outline the methodological steps used to collect and process this complex point cloud data, and detail the procedures used to process and calibrate the aDcp flow and sediment flux data. A comparison with conventional remote sensing methods of estimating bank erosion, using aerial images and Landsat imagery, reveals that traditional techniques are error prone at the high temporal resolutions required to quantify the patterns and volumes of bank erosion induced by the passage of individual flood events. Our analysis reveals the importance of cyclone‐driven flood events in causing high rates of erosion and suspended sediment transport, with a c. twofold increase in bank erosion volumes and a fourfold increase in suspended sediment volumes in the cyclone‐affected wet season. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.