Fluvial and Pond Sediment Overview

Moving from Glacial to Fluvial Focus

• Different environments

and processes at play

• But, similar geologic field

methods for lithologic

descriptions and ages

• Use modern analogs

• In glaciated areas such as

MI, fluvial processes are

highly affected by previous

glacial, glaciofluvial, and

glaciolacustrine processes

• Overlap of natural climate

and vegetation as well as

human factors

Why look interpret fluvial/pond sedimentary records?

• Describe how river behavior has changed over time

• Form and process

• Sediment sources and fluxes

• Natural range of variability vs. human altered

• Floods

• Can apply forward in time

• Understanding geomorphic context for sediment-related contaminants and nutrients

• Paleohydrology – extend modern flood records

• Geoarcheology – surfaces of human occupation

Geomorphology…. “Why that’s like just eating the skin of an apple and throwing the rest away!”

Ralph E. Langenheim, Professor emeritus, Sedimentologist Geology Department, University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana 2008 photo from http://ralphlangenheimcountyboard.blogspot.com/

#1 Skill – Field experience

Don Johnson (soil geomorphology, Univ. Illinois), photo by Randy Schaetzl (Schaetzl and Anderson, 2005)

Hilt Johnson (Quaternary geology and geomorphology, Univ. Illinois), photo by Molly Holden. Jim Knox (fluvial geomorphology, paleohydrology, Univ.

Wisconsin-Madison) photo by Faith Fitzpatrick

Ardith Hansel (Quaternary geology, Illinois State Geological Survey), photo ISGS archives.

Leon Follmer (Paleopedology, Illinois State Geological Survey Emeritus), photo ISGS archives.

#2 Skill – think in 3-D

• Be able to visualize

landscape today and in the

past, into the future

• Be able to visualize glacial

processes, large floods,

different vegetation, etc.

• Recognize that buried land

surfaces may be different

than the modern land

surface.

Pleasant Valley, Upper Pecatonica basin, photo by WI DNR

#3 Skill – Have multidisciplinary background

• Quaternary geology

• Stratigraphy

• Hydraulics/fluid mechanics

• Soils

• Paleohydrology

• Paleoecology

• Sediment transport

• Sedimentology

• Geoarcheology

• Paleolimnology

#4 Skill – Have a big toolbox

• Utilize tools from range of

disciplines

• “Present is the Key to the

Past” (James Hutton). Or is the

past the key to the future?

#5 Skill – Good imagination

#6 Skill – Like the outdoors

Thick Vegetation

Cold

Bugs

Morning Lectures • Fluvial sedimentary environments and features

• Fluvial

• Lacustrine/pond environments

• Manmade

• Field identification

• Soils

• Reconstructing alluvial and lacustrine sedimentary environments

• Pre field characterization

• Field methods • Coring 101

• Field descriptions

• Laboratory methods

• Examples

• Overview of field trip