Richard Hereford

Climate and ephemeral-stream processes: Twentieth-century geomorphology and alluvial stratigraphy of the Little Colorado River, Arizona

During the first 40 years of the twentieth century, erosion was the dominant geomorphic process affecting the morphology of the Little Colorado River channel. The discharge regimen was one of frequent large floods and high annual discharge that created a wide sandy channel free of vegetation. In the 1940s and early 1950s, average annual precipitation declined, reducing annual discharge to about 57% of that of the preceding period as well as reducing the frequency of large floods. The channel adjusted to the new hydrologic regimen by reducing its width. Parts of the channel were frequently dry, and riparian vegetation, primarily nonnative salt cedar, became established on the higher channel surfaces. Precipitation and discharge thereafter increased and aggradation by overbank deposition was the primary geomorphic process, as indicated by accretion of 2 to 5 m of flood-plain alluvium between 1952 and 1978. Events of 1980, however, suggest that the flood plain has ceased to accrete, although climate has not fluctuated. The flood plain has probably reached a critical height above the channel, beyond which further accretion is unlikely under the existing discharge regimen. The recent history of the Little Colorado broadly suggests that flood-plain development was initiated by climatically induced hydrologic fluctuations. Flood-plain deposits in the stratigraphic column of such ephemeral streams may record repeated adjustments to altered hydrologic conditions.

Modern alluvial history of the Paria Rver drainage basin, southern Utah

Abstract Stream channels in the Paria River basin were eroded and partially refilled between 1883 and 1980. Basin-wide erosion began in 1883; channels were fully entrenched and widened by 1890. This erosion occurred during the well-documented period of arroyo cutting in the Southwest. Photographs of the Paria River channel taken between 1918 and 1940 show that the channel did not have a floodplain and remained wide and deep until the early 1940s. A thin bar (

Valley-fill alluviation during the Little Ice Age (ca. A.D. 1400–1880), Paria River basin and southern Colorado Plateau, United States

Valley-fill alluvium deposited from ca. A.D. 1400 to 1880 is widespread in tributaries of the Paria River and is largely coincident with the Little Ice Age epoch of global climate variability. Previous work showed that alluvium of this age is a mappable stratigraphic unit in many of the larger alluvial valleys of the southern Colorado Plateau. The alluvium is bounded by two disconformities resulting from prehistoric and historic arroyo cutting at ca. A.D. 1200–1400 and 1860–1910, respectively. The fill forms a terrace in the axial valleys of major through-flowing streams. This terrace and underlying deposits are continuous and interfinger with sediment in numerous small tributary valleys that head at the base of hillslopes of sparsely vegetated, weakly consolidated bedrock, suggesting that eroded bedrock was an important source of alluvium along with in-channel and other sources. Paleoclimatic and high-resolution paleoflood studies indicate that valley-fill alluviation occurred during a long-term decrease in the frequency of large, destructive floods. Aggradation of the valleys ended about A.D. 1880, if not two decades earlier, with the beginning of historic arroyo cutting. This shift from deposition to valley entrenchment near the close of the Little Ice Age generally coincided with the beginning of an episode of the largest floods in the preceding 400–500 yr, which was probably caused by an increased recurrence and intensity of flood-producing El Nino events beginning at ca. A.D. 1870.

HISTORIC VARIATION OF WARM-SEASON RAINFALL, SOUTHERN COLORADO PLATEAU, SOUTHWESTERN U.S.A.

Rainfall during the warm season (June 15–October 15) is the most important of the year in terms of flood generation and erosion in rivers of the southern Colorado Plateau. Fluvial erosion of the plateau decreased substantially in the 1930s to early 1940s, although the cause of this change has not been linked to variation of warm-season rainfall. This study shows that a decrease of warmseason rainfall frequency was coincident with and probably caused the decreased erosion by reducing the probability of large floods. Warm-season rainfall results from isolated thunderstorms associated with the Southwestern monsoon and from dissipating tropical cyclones and (or) cutoff low-pressure systems that produce widespread, general rainfall. Warm-season rainfall is typically normal to above normal during warm El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions. A network of 24 long-term precipitation gages was used to develop an index of standardized rainfall anomalies for the southern Colorado Plateau for the period 1900–85. The index shows that the occurrence of anomalously dry years increased and the occurrence of anomalously wet years decreased after the early 1930s, although 1939–41, 1972, and 1980–84 were anomalously wet. The decrease in warm-season rainfall after the early 1930s is related to a decrease in rainfall from dissipating tropical cyclones, shifts in the incidence of meridional circulation in the upper atmosphere, and variability of ENSO conditions.

Relation of sediment load and flood-plain formation to climatic variability, Paria River drainage basin, Utah and Arizona

Suspended-sediment load, flow volume, and flood characteristics of the Paria River were analyzed to determine their relation to climate and flood-plain alluviation between 1923 and 1986. Flood-plain alluviation began about 1940 at a time of decreasing magnitude and frequency of floods in winter, summer, and fall. No floods with stages high enough to inundate the flood plain have occurred since 1980, and thus no flood-plain alluviation has occurred since then. The decrease in magnitude and frequency of floods appears to have resulted from a decrease in frequency of large storms, particularly dissipating tropical cyclones, and not from a decrease in annual or seasonal precipitation. Suspended-sediment load is highest in summer and fall, whereas flow volume is highest in winter. Fall shows the greatest interannual variability in suspended-sediment load, flow volume, and flood size because climatic conditions are most variable in fall. The relation between sediment load and discharge apparently did not change within the period of sediment sampling (1949-1976), even though the channel elevation and width changed significantly. Annual suspended-sediment loads estimated for periods before and after 1949-1976 show that decrease in suspended-sediment load caused by floodplain alluviation in the Paria River and other tributaries could have been a significant part of the decrease of suspended-sediment load in the Colorado River in the early 1940s.

Deposition of the Tapeats Sandstone (Cambrian) in central Arizona

Grain size, bedding thickness, dispersion of cross-stratification azimuths, and assemblages of sedimentary structures and trace fossils vary across central Arizona; they form the basis for recognizing six facies (A through F) in the Tapeats Sandstone. Five of these (A through E), present in western central Arizona, are marine deposits containing the trace fossil Corophioides ; several intertidal environments are represented. The association of large-scale cross-bedding (50 to 300 cm) that is characterized by compound cross-stratification, numerous reactivation surfaces, and herringbone patterns is typical of facies A and generally typical of the finer-grained, thinner-bedded facies B. The sedimentary structures and polymodal distribution of foreset azimuths common to facies A and B probably formed on intertidal sand bars during emergence and late-stage tidal runoff. Facies C consists of well-sorted sandstone, gently cross stratified or with continuous parallel stratification, and foresets tangential to the lower bedding surface. This facies generally occurs where the gradient of the depositional surface increases; it apparently was deposited on a beach by shoaling waves. Facies D and, to a lesser extent, the coarser-grained facies E are sandstones with trough cross-stratification, fining-upward cycles, abundant intercalated thin shale and sandstone, rare flaser bedding, and local bipolar distribution of foreset azimuths. Both facies are tidal flat deposits; facies D was probably produced by meandering tidal channels, whereas facies E was likely produced by migration of braided tidal channels. The sixth facies (F), present in eastern central Arizona, is an arkosic small-pebble conglomerate that lacks trace fossils; low dispersion of foreset azimuths and large-scale (1 to 11-m wide) cut-and-fill structure are typical. Facies F was deposited by bedload streams that transported coarse, poorly sorted sand and gravel westward to the intertidal flats.

Multiple constraints on the age of a Pleistocene lava dam across the Little Colorado River at Grand Falls, Arizona

The Grand Falls basalt lava flow in northern Arizona was emplaced in late Pleistocene time. It flowed 10 km from its vent area to the Little Colorado River, where it cascaded into and filled a 65-m-deep canyon to form the Grand Falls lava dam. Lava continued ∼25 km downstream and ∼1 km onto the far rim beyond where the canyon was filled. Subsequent fluvial sedimentation filled the reservoir behind the dam, and eventually the river established a channel along the margin of the lava flow to the site where water falls back into the preeruption canyon. The ca. 150 ka age of the Grand Falls flow provided by whole-rock K-Ar analysis in the 1970s is inconsistent with the preservation of centimeter-scale flow-top features on the surface of the flow and the near absence of physical and chemical weathering on the flow downstream of the falls. The buried Little Colorado River channel and the present-day channel are at nearly the same elevation, indicating that very little, if any, regional downcutting has occurred since emplacement of the flow. Newly applied dating techniques better define the age of the lava dam. Infrared- stimulated luminescence dating of silty mudstone baked by the lava yielded an age of 19.6 ± 1.2 ka. Samples from three noneroded or slightly eroded outcrops at the top of the lava flow yielded 3He cosmogenic ages of 16 ± 1 ka, 17 ± 1 ka, and 20 ± 1 ka. A mean age of 8 ± 19 ka was obtained from averaging four samples using the 40Ar/39Ar step-heating method. Finally, paleomagnetic directions in lava samples from two sites at Grand Falls and one at the vent area are nearly identical and match the curve of magnetic secular variation at ca. 15 ka, 19 ka, 23 ka, and 28 ka. We conclude that the Grand Falls flow was emplaced at ca. 20 ka.

Tributary debris fans and the late Holocene alluvial chronology of the Colorado River, eastern Grand Canyon, Arizona

Bouldery debris fans and sandy alluvial terraces of the Colorado River developed contemporaneously during the late Holocene at the mouths of nine major tributaries in eastern Grand Canyon. The age of the debris fans and alluvial terraces contributes to understanding river hydraulics and to the history of human activity along the river, which has been concentrated on these surfaces for at least two to three millennia. Poorly sorted, coarse-grained debris-flow deposits of several ages are interbedded with, overlie, or are overlapped by three terrace-forming alluviums. The alluvial deposits are of three age groups: the striped alluvium, deposited from before 770 b.c. to about a.d. 300; the alluvium of Pueblo II age deposited from about a.d. 700 to December 1900; and the alluvium of the upper mesquite terrace, deposited from about a.d. 1400 to 1880. Two elements define the geomorphology of a typical debris fan: the large, inactive surface of the fan and a smaller, entrenched, active debris-flow channel and fan that is about one-sixth the area of the inactive fan. The inactive fan is segmented into at least three surfaces with distinctive weathering characteristics. These surfaces are conformable with underlying debris-flow deposits that date from before 770 b.c. to around a.d. 660, a.d. 660 to before a.d. 1200, and from a.d. 1200 to slightly before 1890, respectively, based on late-19th-century photographs, radiocarbon and archaeologic dating of the three stratigraphically related alluviums, and radiocarbon dating of fine-grained debris-flow deposits. These debris flows aggraded the fans in at least three stages beginning about 2.8 ka, if not earlier in the late Holocene. Several main-stem floods eroded the margin of the segmented fans, reducing fan symmetry. The entrenched, active debris-flow channels contain deposits <100 yr old, which form debris fans at the mouth of the channel adjacent to the river. Early and middle Holocene debris-flow and alluvial deposits have not been recognized, as they were evidently not preserved adjacent to the river or are buried by younger deposits.

Channel evolution and hydrologic variations in the Colorado River basin: Factors influencing sediment and salt loads

Abstract Suspended-sediment and dissolved-solid (salt) loads decreased after the early 1940s in the Colorado Plateau portion of the Colorado River basin, although discharge of major rivers — the Colorado, Green and San Juan — did not change significantly. This decline followed a period of high sediment yield caused by arroyo cutting. Reduced sediment loads have previously been explained by a change in sediment sampling procedures or changes in climate, land-use and conservation practices. More recent work has revealed that both decreased sediment production and sediment storage in channels of tributary basins produced the decline of sediment and salt loads. Sediment production and sediment storage are important components of incised-channel evolution, which involves sequential channel deepening, widening and finally floodplain formation. Accordingly, the widespread arroyo incision of the late nineteenth century resulted initially in high sediment loads. Since then, loads have decreased as incised channels (arroyos) have stabilized and begun to aggrade. However, during the 1940s, a period of low peak discharges permitted vegetational colonization of the valley floors, which further reduced sediment loads and promoted channel stabilization. This explanation is supported by experimental studies and field observations. Both geomorphic and hydrologic factors contributed to sediment storage and decreased sediment and salt loads in the upper Colorado River basin.

Reevaluation of the Crooked Ridge River—Early Pleistocene (ca. 2 Ma) age and origin of the White Mesa alluvium, northeastern Arizona

Essential features of the previously named and described Miocene Crooked Ridge River in northeastern Arizona (USA) are reexamined using new geologic and geochronologic data. Previously it was proposed that Cenozoic alluvium at Crooked Ridge and southern White Mesa was pre–early Miocene, the product of a large, vigorous late Paleogene river draining the 35–23 Ma San Juan Mountains volcanic field of southwestern Colorado. The paleoriver probably breeched the Kaibab uplift and was considered important in the early evolution of the Colorado River and Grand Canyon. In this paper, we reexamine the character and age of these Cenozoic deposits. The alluvial record originally used to propose the hypothetical paleoriver is best exposed on White Mesa, providing the informal name White Mesa alluvium. The alluvium is 20–50 m thick and is in the bedrock-bound White Mesa paleovalley system, which comprises 5 tributary paleochannels. Gravel composition, detrital zircon data, and paleochannel orientation indicate that sediment originated mainly from local Cretaceous bedrock north, northeast, and south of White Mesa. Sedimentologic and fossil evidence imply alluviation in a low-energy suspended sediment fluvial system with abundant fine-grained overbank deposits, indicating a local channel system rather than a vigorous braided river with distant headwaters. The alluvium contains exotic gravel clasts of Proterozoic basement and rare Oligocene volcanic clasts as well as Oligocene–Miocene detrital sanidine related to multiple caldera eruptions of the San Juan Mountains and elsewhere. These exotic clasts and sanidine likely came from ancient rivers draining the San Juan Mountains. However, in this paper we show that the White Mesa alluvium is early Pleistocene (ca. 2 Ma) rather than pre–early Miocene. Combined 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dating of an interbedded tuff and detrital sanidine ages show that the basal White Mesa alluvium was deposited at 1.993 ± 0.002 Ma, consistent with a detrital sanidine maximum depositional age of 2.02 ± 0.02 Ma. Geomorphic relations show that the White Mesa alluvium is older than inset gravels that are interbedded with 1.2–0.8 Ma Bishop–Glass Mountain tuff. The new ca. 2 Ma age for the White Mesa alluvium refutes the hypothesis of a large regional Miocene(?) Crooked Ridge paleoriver that predated carving of the Grand Canyon. Instead, White Mesa paleodrainage was the northernmost extension of the ancestral Little Colorado River drainage basin. This finding is important for understanding Colorado River evolution because it provides a datum for quantifying rapid post–2 Ma regional denudation of the Grand Canyon region.