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| Titel |
Millennial size-dependent velocity of coarse river sediment determined using 10Be in cobbles of the Aroma canyon (Atacama, Chile). |
| VerfasserIn |
Sébastien Carretier, Vincent Regard, Laetitia Leanni, Marcelo Farias |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2017
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
en
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 19 (2017) |
| Datensatznummer |
250141331
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2017-4830.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| We focus on coarse sediment routing velocity in fluvial systems. The millennial mean velocity at which coarse sediment move along the fluvial system lies at the heart of many source-to-sink issues. For example, this velocity determines if a climatic or tectonic pulse of sediment generated in the mountain is advected or diluted towards the basin, and thus if the basin stratigraphy is able to record such variations. Whether this millennial velocity depends on pebble size or not is still unclear. Yet, quantifying this possible size dependence is fundamental to interpret the observed transitions between coarse and fine sediment in basin architecture. These uncertainties result from the difficulty to measure coarse sediment velocities and flux that integrate a wide range of floods over periods longer than several years. Here we show that the 10Be concentrations in distinct river pebbles can bridge this gap. We selected cobbles and pebbles ([0.01-0.3] m) along a ~50 km Andean arid canyon in the Atacama. These samples come from a unique lithological source at catchment head. We obtained the mean 10Be concentrations of ~20 to 100 samples at 7 river stations downstream. In addition, the 10Be concentration of individual pebbles was measured for 3 of these 7 locations. They show a downstream increase of both the mean and scattering of 10Be concentrations. Using a simple stochastic model of grain transport and 10Be evolution, we show that: 1- the millennial maximum mean velocity of ~10 cm pebbles is on the order of several meters by year, and 2- that the velocity is inversely related to pebble size, despite a large variability for a given size. This size-dependence is consistent with the observed downstream fining in this river. Such velocities imply a wide range of residence times ([0.1-100] ka) of pebbles ([0.01-0.3] m) in this arid canyon. |
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