Sediment geochronology for bar-built estuaries subject to flood deposition and erosion: A robust multiproxy approach across an estuarine zone

• Published in: Holocene (Sevenoaks) Vol. 28; no. 3; pp. 341 - 353
• Main Authors: Gallagher, John B, Ross, Donald J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01-03-2018; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: 100 year floods; Accretion; Anthropocene; Brackishwater environment; Deposition; Erosion; Estuaries; Estuarine dynamics; Fires; Floods; Geochronology; Geochronometry; Isotopes; Lead isotopes; Methods; Rain; Rainfall; River flow; Rivers; Sediment; Sedimentary facies; Sediments; Soil erosion; Tomography; sediment erosion; flood deposits; Little Swanport River Estuary; sediment isotope tomography; bar-built estuary; 210Pb geochronology
• ISSN: 0959-6836; 1477-0911
• DOI: 10.1177/0959683617729441

This paper presents a contiguous late Anthropocene 210Pb sediment geochronology and a late Anthropocene flood/fire event geochronology for an estuary subject to flood deposition and erosion. The procedure used multiple proxies to identify and evaluate flood facies overlying regions of erosion. Reconstructions of the original baseline sediments were undertaken for the major 210Pb geochronological methods. Only the lower estuary core site, which was deficient in inventory of excess 210Pb of baseline sediments, over the expected atmospheric supply for, was chosen to calculate the total amount of erosion. Erosion, as both cumulative mass and thickness, was then proportioned across flood events, relative to the size of the Rp index flood signal. The Rp index is the product of a simple stepwise thermogravimetric procedure. The flood geochronology was constructed by correlating the relative magnitudes of pivotal floods from an existing 100-year rainfall/river flow model and correlations in peak sediment char content outside of the flood facies with contemporary fire records. Overall, it was determined that 210Pb sediment isotope tomography gave the closest convergence with flood and fire events over those of the constant rate of supply and constant initial concentration methods. The agreement signified that around 40% of the original baseline accretion (25 cm) had been eroded by floods over the last 83 years and that there was possibly considerably more erosion at the upper site, which led to the loss of two flood facies.