Age Dating Fluvial Sediment Storage Reservoirs to Construct Sediment Waiting Time Distributions

Abstract:

Suspended sediment transport is an important geomorphic process that can often control the transport of nutrients and contaminants. The time a particle spends in storage remains a critical knowledge gap in understanding particle trajectories through landscapes. We dated floodplain deposits in South River, VA, using fallout radionuclides (Pb-210, Cs-137), optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), and radiocarbon dating to determine sediment ages and construct sediment waiting time distributions. We have a total of 14 age dates in two eroding banks. We combine these age dates with a well-constrained history of mercury concentrations on suspended sediment in the river from an industrial release. Ages from fallout radionuclides document sedimentation from the early 1900s to the present, and agree with the history of mercury contamination. OSL dates span approximately 200 to 17,000 years old. We performed a standard Weibull analysis of nonexceedance to construct a waiting time distribution of floodplain sediment for the South River. The mean waiting time for floodplain sediment is 2930 years, while the median is approximately 710 years. When the floodplain waiting time distribution is combined with the waiting time distribution for in-channel sediment storage (available from previous studies), the mean waiting time shifts to approximately 680 years, suggesting that quantifying sediment waiting times for both channel and floodplain storage is critical in advancing knowledge of particle trajectories through watersheds.