Anatomy and evolution of a dynamic arroyo system, Kanab Creek, southern Utah, USA

2019 ◽  
Vol 131 (11-12) ◽  
pp. 2094-2109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirk F. Townsend ◽  
Michelle S. Nelson ◽  
Tammy M. Rittenour ◽  
Joel L. Pederson

Abstract Many alluvial valleys in the American Southwest are entrenched within continuous arroyos, and stratigraphic evidence indicates that these fluvial systems experienced repeated periods of entrenchment and aggradation during the mid- to late-Holocene. Previous research suggests arroyo dynamics were regionally quasi-synchronous, implying that they were driven by allogenic forcing due to hydroclimatic fluctuations. However, several of these interpretations rely on records with limited age control and include distal correlations across the American Southwest. While hydroclimatic variability must exert some role, autogenic mechanisms related to catchment-specific geomorphic thresholds are hypothesized to partially control the timing of arroyo dynamics. If driven by autogenic processes, episodes of arroyo cutting and filling may not be regionally contemporaneous. Recent improvements in dating methods permit more detailed reconstructions of the timing and evolution of arroyo dynamics, allowing for a more nuanced assessment of these competing hypotheses. Here we present a uniquely large and focused chronostratigraphic data set from two alluvial reaches of Kanab Creek, located in the Grand Staircase region of southern Utah. Episodes of prehistoric arroyo cutting and filling are reconstructed from 27 sites through recognition of soils and buttressed unconformities in the arroyo-wall stratigraphy, and age control derived from 54 optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages and 50 radiocarbon ages. Our chronostratigraphic data set indicates five periods of channel aggradation occurred since ca. 6.0 ka, with each interrupted by an episode of arroyo entrenchment. Repeated aggradation to a similar channel elevation suggests attainment of a threshold profile, and comparison of the pre-entrenchment longitudinal profile with the modern arroyo channel demonstrates that changes between end-member entrenched and aggraded states are expressed in channel concavity and slope. We propose that arroyo dynamics are partially driven by sediment supply and the rate of channel aggradation, and that these systems must approach complete re-filling before they become sensitive to incision. Entrenchment itself appears to be associated with rapid transitions from pronounced decadal-scale aridity to pluvial (wetter) periods. Not all such hydroclimatic fluctuations are associated with arroyo entrenchment, which highlights the importance of threshold controls on the behavior of these systems. The collective period of “dynamic instability” characterized by epicycles of arroyo entrenchment and aggradation did not initiate until the mid-Holocene, when a climatic shift toward warmer and drier conditions likely increased fine-grained sediment supply to the fluvial system.

1995 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 500-519 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.P. Nicholas ◽  
P.J. Ashworth ◽  
M.J. Kirkby ◽  
M.G. Macklin ◽  
T. Murray

Variations in fluvial sediment transport rates and storage volumes have been described previously as sediment waves or pulses. These features have been identified over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales and have been categorized using existing bedform classifications. Here we describe the factors controlling the generation and propagation of what we term sediment slugs. These can be defined as bodies of clastic material associated with disequilibrium conditions in fluvial systems over time periods above the event scale. Slugs range in magnitude from unit bars (Smith, 1974) up to sedimentary features generated by basin-scale sediment supply disturbances (Trimble, 1981). At lower slug magnitudes, perturbations in sediment transport are generated by local riverbank and/or bed erosion. Larger-scale features result from the occurrence of rare high- magnitude geomorphic events, and the impacts on water and sediment production of tectonics, glaciation, climate change and anthropogenic influences. Simple sediment routing functions are presented which may be used to describe the propagation of sediment slugs in fluvial systems. Attention is drawn to components of the fluvial system where future research is urgently required to improve our quantitative understanding of drainage-basin sediment dynamics.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 849-908 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Beaud ◽  
G. E. Flowers ◽  
J. G. Venditti

Abstract. Bedrock erosion by sediment-bearing subglacial water remains little-studied, however the process is thought to contribute to bedrock erosion rates in glaciated landscapes and is implicated in the excavation of tunnel valleys and the incision of inner gorges. We adapt physics-based models of fluvial abrasion to the subglacial environment, assembling the first model designed to quantify bedrock erosion caused by transient subglacial water flow. The subglacial drainage model consists of a one-dimensional network of cavities dynamically coupled to one or several Röthlisberger channels (R-channels). The bedrock erosion model is based on the tools and cover effect, whereby particles entrained by the flow impact exposed bedrock. We explore the dependency of glacial meltwater erosion on the structure and magnitude of water input to the system, the ice geometry and the sediment supply. We find that erosion is not a function of water discharge alone, but also depends on channel size, water pressure and on sediment supply, as in fluvial systems. Modelled glacial meltwater erosion rates are one to two orders of magnitude lower than the expected rates of total glacial erosion required to produce the sediment supply rates we impose, suggesting that glacial meltwater erosion is negligible at the basin scale. Nevertheless, due to the extreme localization of glacial meltwater erosion (at the base of R-channels), this process can carve bedrock (Nye) channels. In fact, our simulations suggest that the incision of bedrock channels several centimetres deep and a few meters wide can occur in a single year. Modelled incision rates indicate that subglacial water flow can gradually carve a tunnel valley and enhance the relief or even initiate the carving of an inner gorge.


The Holocene ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 984-997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea JM Hanna ◽  
Timothy M Shanahan ◽  
Mead A Allison ◽  
Thomas S Bianchi ◽  
Kathryn M Schreiner

The significant and ongoing environmental changes in Arctic regions demonstrate the need for quantitative, high-resolution records of pre-industrial climate change in this climatically sensitive region; such records are fundamental for understanding recent anthropogenic changes in the context of natural variability. Sediment contained within Arctic coastal environments proximal to large fluvial systems has the ability to record paleoclimate variability on subdecadal to decadal scale resolution, on par with many other terrestrial climate archives (i.e. lake sediments, ice cores). Here, we utilize one such sediment archive from Simpson Lagoon, Alaska, located adjacent to the Colville River Delta to reconstruct temperature variability and fluctuations in sediment sourcing over the past 1700 years. Quantitative reconstructions of summer air temperature are obtained using the branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (brGDGT)-derived methylation index of branched tetraethers (MBT’)/cyclization ratio of branched tetraether (CBT) paleothermometer and reveal temperature departures correlative with noted climate events (i.e. ‘Little Ice Age’, ‘Medieval Climate Anomaly’). In addition, temporal variability in sediment sourcing to the lagoon, determined using a multi-proxy approach (i.e. granulometry, elemental analysis, clay mineralogy), broadly corresponds with temperature fluctuations, indicating relative increases in fluvial sediment discharge during colder intervals and decreased river discharge/increased coastal erosion during warmer periods. The Simpson Lagoon record presented in this study is the first temperature reconstruction, to our knowledge, developed from coastal marine sediments in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxime Morel ◽  
Guillaume Piton ◽  
Caroline Le Bouteiller ◽  
Alexandre Mas ◽  
Guillaume Evin

<p>In mountain areas, the quantification of sediment yield is essential in the diagnosis of a torrential watershed. The objective of this study is to present a prediction method based on multivariate statistical models calibrated from an original data set covering nearly 130 torrential basins in the Northern French Alps. Data on sediment yield and occurrence of torrential events were collected on these catchments thanks to registries from sediment retention basins (average monitoring period of 20 years) and historical archives of the catchment basin managers. On these catchments, several morphological and hydro-meteorological characteristics were calculated (e.g. geological and sediment connectivity indices, the rate of connected eroding areas in the catchment, the Melton index, the slope of the fan, etc.) in order to relate them to sediment production and the frequency of occurrence of torrential events. These models allow the estimation of quantiles of the sediment yield in small torrent catchments. These models could be useful to evaluate sediment yield and the occurrence of torrential events on catchment not equipped with sedimentation structures.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Guyez ◽  
Stephane Bonnet ◽  
Tony Reimann ◽  
Sébastien Carretier ◽  
Jakob Wallinga

<p>Enlightenment of sediments pathways and storage patterns within river systems is critical to apprehend sediment transfer at the Earth’s surface and landscape response to tectonics and climate. Because direct tracing methods (painted, fluorescent or magnetic sediments) are of limited use in terms of their analytical resolution in time and space, alternative physico-chemical methods suitable for larger spatial-temporal scales have been developed (e.g. cosmogenic isotope, detrital thermochronology, isotopic geochemistry, etc). The study of the natural luminescence of sediment particles is emerging for this purpose and seems promising for providing new information complementary to existing methods. This method is based on the quartz/feldspar grains ability to store energy while buried below the Earth’s surface and to emit lumen with light exposure. Some recent studies have used this property to solve geomorphological questions regarding particle fluxes in soil or fluvial systems (Reimann et al., 2017; Sawakuchi et al., 2018) and to quantify rock exhumation (e.g. Herman et al., 2010). Here, we present an experimental testing of an innovative single-grain luminescence-based approach on feldspars. Focusing alongstream the Rangitikei River (RR), New Zealand, we carried out analysis on both modern sediment and Holocene terraces deposits.</p><p>We based our analysis on two complementarians proxies, the paleodose estimated using the bootstrapped minimum age model (Cunningham and Wallinga, 2012) and the percentage of grains eroded from bedrock and re-deposited in the river without signal resetting, i.e. saturated grains. We document changes in the luminescence signature of fluvial sediments while the RR evolves in response to uplift and climate change; from a late Pleistocene-early Holocene braided system to a Holocene incising canyon that subsequently widen.  This allows us to appraise temporal changes in the alongstream contribution of canyon flanks landsides to sediment supply to the river. Overall, we show that distinct landscape dynamics gives distinct luminescence signatures.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Jintao Wang ◽  
Mingxia Shen ◽  
Longshen Liu ◽  
Yi Xu ◽  
Cedric Okinda

Digestive diseases are one of the common broiler diseases that significantly affect production and animal welfare in broiler breeding. Droppings examination and observation are the most precise techniques to detect the occurrence of digestive disease infections in birds. This study proposes an automated broiler digestive disease detector based on a deep Convolutional Neural Network model to classify fine-grained abnormal broiler droppings images as normal and abnormal (shape, color, water content, and shape&water). Droppings images were collected from 10,000 25-35-day-old Ross broiler birds reared in multilayer cages with automatic droppings conveyor belts. For comparative purposes, Faster R-CNN and YOLO-V3 deep Convolutional Neural Networks were developed. The performance of YOLO-V3 was improved by optimizing the anchor box. Faster R-CNN achieved 99.1% recall and 93.3% mean average precision, while YOLO-V3 achieved 88.7% recall and 84.3% mean average precision on the testing data set. The proposed detector can provide technical support for the detection of digestive diseases in broiler production by automatically and nonintrusively recognizing and classifying chicken droppings.


2016 ◽  
Vol 95 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-428
Author(s):  
K. Gersie ◽  
P.G.E.F. Augustinus ◽  
R.T. Van Balen

AbstractHumans have played an important role in fluvial systems because of the impact of their land-use activities, frequently leading to degradation of environmental conditions. Rivers, which are the primary agents in sediment transport, have thus been subject to changes in sediment fluxes. The Suriname River has been affected by anthropogenic activities since colonial times, and has experienced strong discharge and sediment-load changes since the construction of the Afobaka Dam in 1964. The river's estuary sediments largely consist of fine-grained sediments, originating, ultimately, from the Amazon River and transported by the strong tidal current. The influence of this tidal current is diminished at the head of the estuary, allowing the river flow to become dominant. Also remarkable is the interaction of the Suriname River and the westward-migrating mudbanks which is evident in the changing magnitude and volume of Braamspunt, a mudcape located at the mouth of the estuary. The regulated discharge of the river results in a change of the river's morphology, resulting, among other things, in the growth of river bars.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (23) ◽  
pp. 2761
Author(s):  
Jan Wuite ◽  
Thomas Nagler ◽  
Noel Gourmelen ◽  
Maria Jose Escorihuela ◽  
Anna E. Hogg ◽  
...  

Mapping the time-variable calving front location (CFL) of Antarctic ice shelves is important for estimating the freshwater budget, as an indicator of changing ocean and structural conditions or as a precursor of dynamic instability. Here, we present a novel approach for deriving regular and consistent CFLs based on CryoSat-2 swath altimetry. The CFL detection is based on the premise that the shelf edge is usually characterized by a steep ice cliff, which is clearly resolved in the surface elevation data. Our method applies edge detection and vectorization of the sharp ice edge in gridded elevation data to generate vector shapefiles of the calving front. To show the feasibility of our approach, we derived a unique data set of ice-front positions for the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf (FRIS) between 2011 and 2018 at a 200 m spatial resolution and biannual temporal frequency. The observed CFLs compare well with independently derived ice front positions from Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar imagery and are used to calculate area change, advance rates, and iceberg calving rates. We measure an area increase of 810 ± 40 km2 a−1 for FRIS and calving rates of 9 ± 1 Gt a−1 and 7 ± 1 Gt a−1 for the Filchner and Ronne Ice Shelves, respectively, which is an order of magnitude smaller than their steady-state calving flux. Our findings demonstrate that the “elevation-edge” method is complementary to standard CFL detection techniques. Although at a reduced spatial resolution and less suitable for smaller glaciers in steep terrain, it enables to provide CFLs at regular intervals and to fill existing gaps in time and space. Moreover, the method simultaneously provides ice thickness, required for mass budget calculation, and has a degree of automation which removes the need for heavy manual intervention. In the future, altimetry data has the potential to deliver a systematic and continuous record of change in ice shelf calving front positions around Antarctica. This will greatly benefit the investigation of environmental forcing on ice flow and terminus dynamics by providing a valuable climate data record and improving our knowledge of the constraints for calving models and ice shelf freshwater budget.


2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (8) ◽  
pp. 1203-1215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Chen ◽  
Wenmin Li ◽  
Fei Gao ◽  
Kaitai Liang ◽  
Hua Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract To date cloud computing may provide considerable storage and computational power for cloud-based applications to support cryptographic operations. Due to this benefit, attribute-based keyword search (ABKS) is able to be implemented in cloud context in order to protect the search privacy of data owner/user. ABKS is a cryptographic primitive that can provide secure search services for users but also realize fine-grained access control over data. However, there have been two potential problems that prevent the scalability of ABKS applications. First of all, most of the existing ABKS schemes suffer from the outside keyword guessing attack (KGA). Second, match privacy should be considered while supporting multi-keyword search. In this paper, we design an efficient method to combine the keyword search process in ABKS with inner product encryption and deploy several proposed techniques to ensure the flexibility of retrieval mode, the security and efficiency of our scheme. We later put forward an attribute-based conjunctive keyword search scheme against outside KGA to solve the aforementioned problems. We provide security notions for two types of adversaries and our construction is proved secure against chosen keyword attack and outside KGA. Finally, all-side simulation with real-world data set is implemented for the proposed scheme, and the results of the simulation show that our scheme achieves stronger security without yielding significant cost of storage and computation.


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