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Geology; February 2005; v. 33; no. 2; p. 133-136; DOI: 10.1130/G21006.1
© 2005 Geological Society of America
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Cosmogenically enabled sediment budgeting

Kyle K. Nichols*,1, Paul R. Bierman1, Marc Caffee*,2, Robert Finkel2 and Jennifer Larsen3

1 Department of Geology and School of Natural Resources, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont 05405, USA
2 Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94405, USA
3 Department of Geology, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont 05405, USA

We used 10Be and 26Al to constrain the millennial-scale sediment and nuclide budget for a common, long-studied, but poorly understood landform in arid regions, the desert piedmont. We sampled the Chemehuevi Mountain piedmont, a complex multisurfaced landform in the Mojave Desert, western United States. The nuclide data indicate that sediment is produced more rapidly (1.1 x 105 kg·yr–1·km–2) in steep mountain source basins than on the low-gradient pediment (4.0 x 104 kg·yr–1·km–2) or the intrapiedmont mountain range (2.5 x 104 kg·yr–1·km–2). However, the bulk of the sediment in transport is derived from erosion of the large abandoned alluvial surface (3.9 x 104 kg·yr–1·km–2). The combination of mass and nuclide budgeting suggests that sediment transport speeds decrease downslope from tens of meters per year in confined channels on the proximal pediment to decimeters per year in unconfined distributaries on distal wash surfaces. The sediment and nuclide budgeting approach we use is particularly valuable in arid regions where geomorphically significant events are infrequent and dating control is poor, thus confounding traditional sediment-budgeting techniques.

Key Words: sediment yield • piedmont • erosion • sediment transport • Mojave Desert • 10Be




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Late Quaternary history of the Chemehuevi Mountain piedmont, Mojave Desert, deciphered using 10Be and 26Al
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