We study surface processes and erosion
This summer 2022 kicked off our first research trip to Oregon, where we collected sand and gravels for OSL and CRN geochronology. Fieldwork was HOT but successful, with a great set of samples collected that span a range of terrace ages and range of methodologies!
After field work, the CC team headed to Indiana University to get acquainted with their supercomputer. We set up several model runs, tried out local food & brews, and explored some Indiana bedrock rivers!
Two more trips to the West Elks this month – first, Sarah, Trevor, and Oliver the dog revisited the landslide in the lower West Elk Creek. Sam ’21 used numerical modeling to estimate the age of this slide, but we’re hoping to corroborate that age with cosmogenic radionuclide exposure dating. With Trevor’s expertise, we collected 4 samples and are currently prepping some thin sections to examine quartz content.
Later in the month, Kira Ratcliffe ’22 and Sarah headed to the upper West Elk Creek to examine sediment mixing. We took grain size, angularity, and lithology measurements on two talus fields, four debris flows, and three sites along the creek channel. Kira is working on mathematic representations of sediment mixing, and will present work at the Summer Research Symposium in February 2022!
We snuck in a few days of field work before the start of the semester. First off was Peyton’s work in the Teanaway River basin, where we visited landslide sites by car and bike, and dug into streambanks for datable material. We came out of it with 7 samples – a success!
After a couple days recuperation, Sarah continued the field work journey to Montana to get grain size counts. After being thwarted by wildfire clean-up, she eventually made it to most sites, and invented some new outerwear for pebble-counting geomorphologists.
Through it all, Oliver the field dog was a trooper, guarding our pebble counts doggedly.
We had a successful field excursion to the West Elk Wilderness in early July! Spencer, Sam, and Sarah backpacked in to West Elk Creek on the Lion’s Gulch Trail with GPS gear and gravelometers where we measured stream sections around a large valley-blocking landslide (see picture from top of the slide). This was the first truly remote test of the new RTK system, and happy to report that the batteries held up, there were no kinks in the set up, and we were able to get 2-3 mm precision! Data from this trip will help Sam calibrate his numerical model on landslide blockages, and help Spencer assess the upstream effects of base level change via dams.
