Relations between rainfall–runoff‐induced erosion and aeolian deposition at archaeological sites in a semi‐arid dam‐controlled river corridor

Process dynamics in fluvial‐based dryland environments are highly complex with fluvial, aeolian, and alluvial processes all contributing to landscape change. When anthropogenic activities such as dam‐building affect fluvial processes, the complexity in local response can be further increased by flood‐ and sediment‐limiting flows. Understanding these complexities is key to predicting landscape behavior in drylands and has important scientific and management implications, including for studies related to paleoclimatology, landscape ecology evolution, and archaeological site context and preservation. Here we use multi‐temporal LiDAR surveys, local weather data, and geomorphological observations to identify trends in site change throughout the 446‐km‐long semi‐arid Colorado River corridor in Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA, where archaeological site degradation related to the effects of upstream dam operation is a concern. Using several site case studies, we show the range of landscape responses that might be expected from concomitant occurrence of dam‐controlled fluvial sand bar deposition, aeolian sand transport, and rainfall‐induced erosion. Empirical rainfall‐erosion threshold analyses coupled with a numerical rainfall–runoff–soil erosion model indicate that infiltration‐excess overland flow and gullying govern large‐scale (centimeter‐ to decimeter‐scale) landscape changes, but that aeolian deposition can in some cases mitigate gully erosion. Whereas threshold analyses identify the normalized rainfall intensity (defined as the ratio of rainfall intensity to hydraulic conductivity) as the primary factor governing hydrologic‐driven erosion, assessment of false positives and false negatives in the dataset highlight topographic slope as the next most important parameter governing site response. Analysis of 4+ years of high resolution (four‐minute) weather data and 75+ years of low resolution (daily) climate records indicates that dryland erosion is dependent on short‐term, storm‐driven rainfall intensity rather than cumulative rainfall, and that erosion can occur outside of wet seasons and even wet years. These results can apply to other similar semi‐arid landscapes where process complexity may not be fully understood. Published 2015. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA     

Predictive permeability variations in a Hermod sand reservoir,Stine Segments,Siri Field,Danish North Sea

The Hermod sand of the Stine Segments, Siri Field, Danish North Sea, displays large permeability variations (1–600 mD). These permeability variations represent horizontal layering in the reservoir, largely formed by diagenetic processes. They have a significant impact on reservoir performance, because horizontal producers in fairly thin reservoirs (∼30 m) are protected against bottom-water influx and can produce water-free for long periods of time.     

A giant (5.3 × 10 m) middle Miocene (c. 15 Ma) sediment mound (M1) above the Siri Canyon, Norwegian–Danish Basin: Origin and significance

A large-scale enigmatic mound structure (M1) has been discovered in middle Miocene strata of the Norwegian–Danish Basin, c. 10 km east and updip of the Central Graben. It is located about 1 km beneath the seabed and clearly resolved by a 3D seismic data set focused on the deeper, remobilised, sand-filled Siri Canyon. M1 comprises two culminations, up to 80 m high and up to 1400 m long, constituting a sediment volume of some 5.3 × 10⁷ m³. It is characterized by a hard reflection at the top, a soft reflection at the base, differential compaction relative to the surrounding sediments, and 10 ms TWT velocity pull up of underlying reflections, indicating a relatively fast mound fill, attributed to the presence of sand within the mound. Internal seismic reflections are arranged in an asymmetric concentric pattern, suggesting a progressive aggradation to the NW, downstream to a mid-Miocene contour current system. Numerous elongated pockmarks occur in the upper Miocene succession close to the mound and indicate that the study area was influenced by gas expulsion in the mid- and late Miocene.The reflection configuration, velocity, dimensions, regional setting, and isolated location can best be explained by interpreting the mound as a giant sand volcano extruded >1 km upward from the Siri Canyon during the middle Miocene (c. 15 Ma). The likely causes of this remarkable structure include gas charge and lateral pressure transfer from the Central Graben along the Siri Canyon reservoir. While this is the first such structure described from this part of the North Sea, similar-aged sand extrudites have recently been inferred from seismic observations in the North Viking Graben, thus suggesting that the mid-Miocene was a time of widespread and intense sediment remobilization and fluid expulsion in the North Sea.     

Garn Prŷs: A mid-Silurian canyon,feeder to the Denbigh Grits of North Wales

A fining-upward, siliciclastic sequence of Wenlock strata, coarsely rudaceous at the base, infilled a canyon, about 4.5 km wide and 1700 m deep, in older strata. The rudaceous deposits, at the flat base of the canyon, are composed mainly of rounded cobbles and boulders of acid volcanic rocks. These are interpreted as cohesionless debris-flow deposits that were succeeded by northward-directed high concentration turbidity currents. The infill is deduced to have been derived from a terrain of acid volcanic rocks to the south, similar in Nd isotope composition to the Llewelyn Volcanic Group of Snowdonia. It implies mid-Silurian uplift and erosion of the Harlech Dome.     

Drainage reorganization and Laramide tectonics in north-central New Mexico and downstream effects in the Gulf of Mexico

The El Rito and Galisteo depocenters in north-central New Mexico archive tectonically-driven Paleogene drainage reorganization, the effects of which influenced sedimentation along the northwestern margin of the Gulf of Mexico. Although separated by ~100 km and lacking depositional chronology for the El Rito Formation, the two aforementioned New Mexican depocenters are commonly considered remnants of a single basin with coeval deposition and shared accommodation mechanism. Detrital zircon U-Pb maximum depositional ages indicate that the El Rito and Galisteo formations are not coeval. Moreover, stratigraphic thickness trends and mapping relationships indicate different accommodation mechanisms for the Galisteo and El Rito depocenters; tectonically-induced subsidence versus infilling of incised topography, respectively. The regional unconformity that bounds the base of both the El Rito and Galisteo formations is a correlative surface induced by local tectonic activity and associated drainage reorganization in the early Eocene, and was diachronously buried by northward onlap of fluvial sediments. Detrital zircon distributions in both depocenters indicate increased recycling of Mesozoic strata above the unconformity, but diverge upsection as topographic prominence of local basement-involved uplifts waned. Sediment capture in these depocenters is coeval with deposition in other externally-drained Laramide basins. Further, it corresponds to a period of low Laramide province-derived sediment input and replacement by Appalachian-sourced sediment along the northwestern margin of the Gulf of Mexico during a basin-wide transgression. This illustrates the potential effect that pockets of sediment storage within the catchment of a transcontinental drainage system can have over the sedimentary record in the receiving marine basin.     

Relationships between high‐magnitude relative sea‐level changes and filling of a coarse‐grained submarine canyon (Pleistocene,Ionian Calabria,Southern Italy)

A middle Pleistocene coarse‐grained canyon fill succession (the Serra Mulara Formation) crops out in the northern sector of the Crotone Basin, a forearc basin located on the Ionian side of the Calabrian Arc and active from the Serravallian to middle Pleistocene. This succession is an example of coarse‐grained submarine canyon fill, which consists of a north‐west to south‐east elongated body (4·25 km long and up to 1·5 km wide) laterally confined by a deep‐water clayey and silty succession and located behind the modern Neto delta (north of Crotone). The thickness of the unit reaches 178 m. The lower part of the canyon fill is dominated by gravelly to sandy density‐flow deposits containing abundant bivalve and gastropod fragments, passing upward into a succession composed of metre‐scale to decimetre‐scale density‐flow deposits forming sandstone–mudstone couplets. Sandstone deposits are mostly structureless and planar‐laminated, whereas the clayey layers record hemipelagic deposition during quieter phases. This succession is overlain by another composed of thicker structureless sandstones alternating with layers of interlaminated mudstones and sandstones, which contain leaf remnants and fresh water ostracods, and are linked directly to river floods. The canyon fill is overlain by gravelly to sandy continental deposits recording a later stage of emergence. Facies analysis, together with micropalaeontological data from the hemipelagic units, suggests that the studied canyon fill records, firstly, a progressive gravel material cut‐off during deposition due to an overall relative sea‐level rise, leading to a progressive increase in the entrapment of sediment in fluvial to shallow‐marine systems, and secondly, a generalized relative sea‐level lowering. This trend probably reflects high‐magnitude glacio‐eustatic changes combined with the regional uplift of the region, ultimately leading to emergence.     

Conflict,Space, and Resource Management at Grand Canyon*

Geographical spaces and boundaries are neither simple nor naively given. An examination of selected disputes over territory in the greater Grand Canyon area reveals the importance of considering the implications of absolute, relative, and representational spaces for how contests are framed and negotiated. Efforts to move toward a more ecologically based regime of natural resource management at Grand Canyon require a better understanding of how the existing spaces came to have their present location, size, configuration, definition, and jurisdictional structure.     

雅鲁藏布江大峡谷的形成

通过时雅鲁藏布大峡谷流域地貌形成响应时间域的定量估算,大峡谷与上游河道特征的时比,以及大峡谷入口处河湖阶地的沉积分析和定年研究．结合构造研究的新进展和数值地貌分析成果,系统论证了雅鲁藏布大峡谷的形成。研究结果表明,现今的雅鲁藏布大峡谷与大峡谷上游的河道在大峡谷形成之前分属不同的河流体系,大约在距今30kaBP前后,原属于帕隆藏布江水系支流的扎曲一直白河段因溯源侵蚀,袭夺了位于现今直白河段上游的古雅鲁藏布江水系,使得此前向南经南伊沟（纳伊普曲）流出高原的古雅鲁藏布江与帕隆藏布江合二为一,雅鲁藏布大峡谷得以贯通和强烈的侵蚀下切,形成现今著名的大峡谷和大拐弯式样的流域结构。     

陕西商南金丝峡地质公园地质遗迹特征及地质意义

陕西商南金丝峡地质公园以南北方过渡地带的喀斯特峡谷地貌为依托,完整系统地保留了其形成、演化过程的地质遗迹。在对该公园地质遗迹资源进行调查和系统研究的基础上,采用定性与定量相结合,依据地质遗迹景观的评定体系和评定方法,对公园的地质遗迹资源质量进行评价。结果表明,公园喀斯特峡谷地貌类型、规模在全国具有典型意义。认为该研究区域将为研究峡谷形成演化历史提供详实、完整的资料,丰富峡谷地貌形成演化理论,进而为研究南秦岭新构造运动阶段划分奠定基础,推动整个秦岭造山带新构造运动的深入研究,对人类活动和环境的影响有着重要的地学意义。