A giant dune-dammed lake on the North Platte River, Nebraska
- Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE (United States). Conservation and Survey Div.
- Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE (United States). Dept. of Geology
The recent work in the Nebraska Sand Hills, just north of the North Platte Valley, has revealed the presence of numerous dune dams--sites where eolian sand has filled Pleistocene paleovalleys and caused the formation of lake basins containing abundant small, interdunal lakes. Although the Platte River is considered the southern margin of the Sand Hills, there is a 1,200 sq km triangular area of large dunes in Lincoln County just south of the South Platte. The authors hypothesize that large dunes migrated southward to fill the North Platte Valley during glacial maximum when both the North and South Platte were dry. As Rocky Mountain snowmelt and Great Plains precipitation increased during deglaciation, a single 65 km-long, 15 km-wide, 50 m-deep lake formed behind the massive dune dam. The tentative chronology suggests that the lake was in existence for at least several thousand years. They have not yet found compelling evidence of catastrophic flooding downstream of the former lake. Evidence of two large Quaternary lakes on the White Nile between Khartoum and Malakal (Sudan) was discovered in the 1960's. Shoreline deposits indicate the lakes were 400--600 km long and up to 50 km wide. Although the lakes have been attributed to repeated blockage of the White Nile by clay-rich Blue Nile deposits, the distribution and age of dune sand near the confluence of these rivers suggest that, as in the Nebraska example, the course of the White Nile was blocked by dunes when the region was desiccated in the Late Pleistocene. Lakes behind permeable dams rise to a level where input equals output. Earthen dams are vulnerable to overtopping and piping. The relatively high permeability of dune sand prevents or delays overtopping, and piping is prevented by the extremely high low hydraulic gradients that typify extant sand dams.
- OSTI ID:
- 5932297
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-921058-; CODEN: GAAPBC
- Journal Information:
- Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States), Vol. 24:7; Conference: 1992 annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA), Cincinnati, OH (United States), 26-29 Oct 1992; ISSN 0016-7592
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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