Holocene fluvial geomorphic change in the central Mississippi Valley
- Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL (United States)
Four distinct Mississippi River (MR) channel patterns are distinguished on the basis of geomorphic expression and cross-cutting relationships between the Missouri River mouth and Thebes Gap (TG). In order of decreasing age, they are (1) a multi-channeled braided system superimposed on a sandy substrate that correlates with the Kingston Terrace (KT); (2) a relatively large amplitude, large sinuosity, meandering system; (3) a smaller amplitude, smaller sinuosity, meandering system with a marked increase in associated overbank sheetwash and splays; and, (4) an island-braided pattern aligned with the modern (MR). After the (KT) formed, the (MR) had a net westward migration and episodically decreased in sinuosity. Decreasing sinuosity is possibly in response to a general decrease in sediment yield. Channel pattern changes are bracketed somewhat by available radiocarbon ages and the geomorphic location of archaeological deposit with temporally diagnostic artifacts. The KT formed between about 10,400 and 9800 B.P.; the superimposed braid pattern has fill consisting of Lake Superior source reddish brown clay deposited by large, and possibly catastrophic, floods between 9800 and 9500 B.P. The large sinuosity meandering pattern was active from before 4400 B.P. until about 2400 B.P. at the latest. It was probably initiated millennia earlier. The small sinuosity meandering pattern was initiated by about 2500 B.P. and abandoned before 1100 B.P. The geomorphic mapping is the first component of a geoarchaeological investigation to aid cultural resource management to aid cultural resource management in the central MR Valley. At the same time, it provides some constraints on the origin and age of some long-recognized landforms, such as the TG.
- OSTI ID:
- 5724736
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-921058--
- Journal Information:
- Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States), Journal Name: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States) Vol. 24:7; ISSN GAAPBC; ISSN 0016-7592
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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