scholarly journals Automated characterization of ridge-swale patterns along the Mississippi River

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alicia Downard ◽  
Stephen Semmens ◽  
Bryant Robbins
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Machine Learning Algorithms ◽  
Training Data ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Linear Feature ◽  
Topographic Features ◽  
Backward Erosion Piping ◽  
The Individual

The orientation of constructed levee embankments relative to alluvial swales is a useful measure for identifying regions susceptible to backward erosion piping (BEP). This research was conducted to create an automated, efficient process to classify patterns and orientations of swales within the Lower Mississippi Valley (LMV) to support levee risk assessments. Two machine learning algorithms are used to train the classification models: a convolutional neural network and a U-net. The resulting workflow can identify linear topographic features but is unable to reliably differentiate swales from other features, such as the levee structure and riverbanks. Further tuning of training data or manual identification of regions of interest could yield significantly better results. The workflow also provides an orientation to each linear feature to support subsequent analyses of position relative to levee alignments. While the individual models fall short of immediate applicability, the procedure provides a feasible, automated scheme to assist in swale classification and characterization within mature alluvial valley systems similar to LMV.

Meander Loops and the Cahokia Site

1964 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles J. Bareis
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
River Channel ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Channel Migration ◽  
Mississippi River Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley

AbstractThe locations of certain mounds at the Cahokia site indicate that the rate of Mississippi River channel migration in the American Bottoms in the Upper Mississippi Valley has differed from the rate of channel movement in the Lower Mississippi Valley. The American Bottoms was probably the most favorable section of the Mississippi River Valley for long-term prehistoric settlement with regard to location within the present meander belt of the river.

The Archaic of the Lower Mississippi Valley

1961 ◽  
Vol 26 (3Part1) ◽  
pp. 317-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
William G. Haag
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Gulf Coast ◽  
General Pattern ◽  
Ohio River ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Alluvial Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
General Acceptance ◽  
Poverty Point

AbstractNo archaeological remains which the majority of specialists will accept as Archaic have been found in the Mississippi Valley from the mouth of Ohio River to the Gulf of Mexico. Despite this, the literature reflects a general acceptance of the belief that the Archaic stage is well represented in the Lower Valley. The presence of concentrated Archaic populations in northern Alabama and western Tennessee and Kentucky has given comparative support to these expectations and has provided part of the source for some of the hypothetical statements in the literature of what the Lower Valley Archaic ought to be like. Although the failure of writers to agree on a definition of Archaic which will satisfy the evidence in all of the areas of Eastern United States has contributed to the problem of identifying Archaic materials in the Lower Valley, the lack of these remains can best be explained by the geology of the region. The cutting and filling of the Alluvial Valley during the Pleistocene changes in sea level have removed or buried all of the surfaces that might have been occupied by Archaic peoples. The surface of the Alluvial Valley is everywhere less than 5000 years old. Possible Late Archaic sites are located on old stable beach ridges or near enough to the Pleistocene terraces not to have been included in the general pattern of Recent coastal subsidence. It is concluded that Archaic or earlier materials are absent in the Lower Alluvial Valley of the Mississippi River. Neither Tchefuncte nor Copell are accepted as Archaic; Poverty Point is viewed as transitional from an Upper Archaic tradition to some phase of the Formative stage. Poverty Point materials may not be expected to be found in quantity along the Gulf Coast of the Mississippi Delta region.

Predicting backward erosion piping hazard, Lower Mississippi Valley, USA

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. qjegh2020-035
Author(s):  
S. Semmens ◽  
W. Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Logit Model ◽  
Area Under The Curve ◽  
Internal Erosion ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Operating Characteristics ◽  
Final Model ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Characteristics Analysis ◽  
Backward Erosion Piping ◽  
Using Data

Backward erosion piping (BEP) is a form of internal erosion and common failure mode along levees. Despite over a century of study, predicting where BEP will initiate is still a considerable challenge. This study proposes a new model for predicting BEP initiation focused on the widest range of applicability. A logit model is trained using data from 15 sites along the Lower Mississippi Valley. The included parameters are independent of geography or geological regime and exhibit recorded or suspected correlations to BEP. Three significant factors (95% confidence interval) are retained for the final model: cumulative clay thickness within the blanket (odds ratio (OR) 0.520), critical gradient (OR 0.001) and exit gradient (OR 63.15). Receiver operating characteristics analysis indicates an area under the curve of 0.823. The model demonstrates 71% classification accuracy, a dramatic 10% increase over previous logit model attempts. Model results are most applicable within 150 m of the levee toe to predict new incidents of BEP initiation. The final model is a useful tool for BEP assessment and mitigation efforts.

Possible Cahokian Contacts in Eastern and Southeastern Arkansas

2020 ◽  
pp. 185-204
Author(s):  
Marvin D. Jeter ◽  
Robert J. Scott ◽  
John H. House
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Time Trend ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Mound Sites

Most discussions of Cahokian “contact” and “influence” in the Lower Mississippi Valley have focused on a “horizon” around 1200 AD and sites east of the Mississippi River; another site was documented recently in northeastern Louisiana. Here, we present additional westerly evidence from sites in eastern and southeastern Arkansas that have produced: Missouri Flint Clay figurines; flakes resembling Burlington and Crescent Quarry cherts; hoes, polished “hoe chips,” and other items made of Mill Creek chert; plus a few Cahokia-style chunkey stones and a Cahokia arrow point, but as yet no Cahokian ceramics. These items tend to cluster at and near three mound sites, in contexts around 1200 AD, with hints of a southward time trend. Unlike the few “elite” or sacred figurines found in mounds, most other items are utilitarian and may have been recirculated (rather than chiefly-redistributed) via “trade fairs” at mound centers, to commoners from the hinterlands.

A classic examination of fluvial processes and forest patterns: Victor Ernest Shelford’s (1954) ‘Some Lower Mississippi Valley Flood Plain Communities: Their Age and Elevation’. Ecology 35(2): 126–142.1

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 818-826
Author(s):  
Kimberly M. Meitzen
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Forest Succession ◽  
Flood Plain ◽  
Forest Community ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Community Patterns ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Fluvial Processes ◽  
Historical Resources

The study of the interaction between fluvial processes and forest community patterns owes elements of its origins to the research of Shelford (1954) on the Mississippi River valley. Shelford (1954) is a classic for many reasons; three highlighted here are its role of establishing a methodology for applying historical resources for long-term research studies, its influence on developing conceptual models of forest succession relative to multiple controlling factors, and its recognition of the rapid and extensive impact of human activities on altering natural land-cover patterns and the important role of analog forests for management and conservation. References to Shelford (1954) within the literature have increased every year since its publication and I believe its presence among varied disciplines will continue.

Additional notes on the Poverty Point Site in Northern Louisiana

1954 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Ford
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
American Antiquity ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Cultural Complex ◽  
Extensive Surface ◽  
Made In ◽  
Poverty Point

The two large mounds at the Poverty Point and Motley sites in West Carrol Parish, Louisiana, were first adequately described by C. B. Moore (1913, Fig. 29), and for a long while these structures and the cultural remains scattered about them remained one of the principal puzzles in the archaeology of the lower Mississippi Valley. Clarence Webb has made extensive surface collections from this locality for a number of years and his three articles inAmerican Antiquity, the last written with Haag, form the bulk of the information which we have on the culture (Webb, 1944, 1948; Haag and Webb, 1953). The purpose of the present brief note is to report some newly discovered facets of the Poverty Point cultural complex.The writer was able to work a few weeks at the site in the spring of 1952 and again in 1953. However, the most remarkable discovery was not made in the field but in the Cartographic Laboratory of the Mississippi River Commission in Vicksburg.

Deglacial Flood Origin of the Charleston Alluvial Fan, Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley

1994 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna A. Porter ◽  
Margaret J. Guccione
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Alluvial Fan ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
Silty Clay ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
The North ◽  
Sand Body ◽  
Braided Stream

AbstractLarge-magnitude flooding of the Mississippi River from proglacial lakes Agassiz and Superior most likely occurred between 11,300 and 10,900 and 9900 and 9500 yr B.P. The Charleston alluvial fan, a depositional remnant of one of these floods, is located at the head of a wide alluvial plain near Charleston, Missouri. The fan is an elongate, convex-up sand body (16 × 24 km) composed of medium- and fine-grained sand at least 8 m thick. This sand contrasts with the older coarse-grained sand of the braided stream surface to the west and south and younger silty clay of the meandering stream level to the north and east. A weakly developed soil separates the underlying braided steam deposits from the alluvial fan. A bulk-soil radiocarbon date of 10,590 ± 200 yr B.P. from the contact between the fan and clays of the meandering stream system indicates that the Charleston fan was deposited near the end of the early interval of flooding from Lake Agassiz about 10,900 yr B.P. If the Charleston fan is the last remnant of deglacial flooding in the lower Mississippi Valley, then deposition of significant quantities of sediment from largemagnitude floods between 10,000 and 9500 yr B.P. did not extend into the lower Mississippi Valley through Thebes Gap.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document