Collaborative Research: Reconstructing paleo-sediment flux from river deposits: toward quantifying sediment discharge from bedform to basin scale

限制古代河流携带的沉积物数量为了解整个地球历史的景观条件提供了一个窗口。它还有助于预测碳氢化合物，水，矿物和地热资源埋藏在沉积盆地中的位置。该项目旨在促进我们对沉积物如何通过河床，酒吧和河流堤坝转移的理解，以帮助i）回答有关河流对构造，气候和海平面变化的反应的问题，ii）了解地球和其他行星上河流运动的控制，iii）预测地下能源开发，矿产勘探和含水层管理的最佳地点。该项目正在为代表性不足群体的学生提供培训机会，从而帮助培养一支多样化的地球科学工作队伍。这项研究还产生了大型的数据库-通过数据库提供-实验底形特征和比例尺地层测量，这将是一个宝贵的教学资源，对地质学家，地貌学家和土木工程师都很有用。此外，研究人员正在开发迷你教程和虚拟实地考察，可用作学生的课堂练习和科学家的露头解释练习，包括那些获得实地经验有限的人。图像和图像解释正在被纳入机器学习项目，以支持开发自动化露头解释工具。 该项目利用地貌学和沉积地质学的进展，将沉积物供应在沉积物输运过程中的作用与多尺度地层产品定量联系起来。物理实验，建模和现场观测相结合，被用来完善物理约束的沉积物输运率的底形，酒吧和渠道，并量化的形状和保存这些功能的地层记录与沉积物通量条件在不同的尺度。这一见解被应用到存款的西班牙比利牛斯山脉-一个系统，具有强大的流域规模的沉积物通量的限制-作为一个现场校准练习。随后，所开发的方法可以帮助定量测试的沉积物供应的变化，发生在古新世始新世热最大的气候变化事件的假设。这些努力产生了新的见解，沉积物之间的不同，但相互关联的形态动力过程在河流景观，并提供了一个指导，环境和土地利用的变化如何影响河流流动性的百年到千年的时间scales.This奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Constraining the quantity of sediment carried by ancient rivers provides a window into landscape conditions throughout Earth’s history. It also facilitates the prediction of where hydrocarbon, water, mineral, and geothermal resources are buried in sedimentary basins. This project aims to advance our understanding of how sediment is transferred through the beds, bars, and levees of rivers in order to help i) answer questions about river response to changes in tectonics, climate, and sea level, ii) understand controls on river movements on Earth and other planets, and iii) predict the best places for underground energy development, mineral exploration and aquifer management. This project is providing training opportunities for students from underrepresented groups, thereby helping to develop a diverse geoscience workforce. This research is also producing large datasets—made available via data repositories— of experimental bedform characteristics and scaled stratigraphic measurements that will be a valuable teaching resource, and useful for geologists, geomorphologists, and civil engineers alike. In addition, the researchers are developing mini-tutorials and virtual field trips that can be used as classroom exercises for students and outcrop-interpretation exercises for scientists, including those with limited access to field experiences. Images and image interpretations are being incorporated into the machine learning project to support the development of automated outcrop interpretation tools. This project is leveraging advances in geomorphology and sedimentary geology to quantitatively connect the role of sediment supply in sediment-transport processes across multiple scales to stratigraphic products. A combination of physical experiments, modeling, and field observations is being used to refine physical constraints on sediment transport rates of bedforms, bars, and channels, and to quantify how the shape and preservation of these features in the stratigraphic record relate to sediment-flux conditions at different scales. This insight is being applied to deposits of the Spanish Pyrenees – a system with robust basin-scale sediment-flux constraints – as a field calibration exercise. Subsequently, the developed approaches can help quantitatively test hypotheses about sediment-supply changes that occurred in response to the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum climate-change event. These efforts are yielding new insight into how sediment is partitioned between distinct but interrelated morphodynamic processes in fluvial landscapes, and providing a guide to how environmental and land-use change can affect river mobility on centennial to millennial timescales.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.