Decadal sediment accumulation rates on the floodplain of the Strickland River, Papua New Guinea
Abstract
Rate of aggradation and infilling of accommodation space along lowland channels in response to post-glacial sea level rise should depend on sediment supply. The Strickland and Fly Rivers join at just 6 m above sea level, and the Strickland has historically carried about 7 times the sediment load and twice the river discharge as the Fly. Here we test the hypothesis that the lowland Strickland River floodplain should now have a lower sediment trap efficiency (due to more fully developed floodplains) than the middle Fly River, which currently losses about 40% of its load to the floodplain annually. We use mine-derived elevated Pb and Ag in floodplain core samples to determine the rates of sedimentation across the lower Strickland floodplain. Field sampling campaigns were conducted in 1997 and 2003, collecting shallow (less than 1 m) core samples at 5 relatively straight reaches up to 2 km from channel banks (in 1997 and 2003) and from 3 strongly curved sections, as well as from other sites of interest (2003). Various observations indicate that the concentration of particulate metals in overbank floods varies with stage, drought-flood cycles, and through the life of the mine. Sediment accumulation declines across the floodplain from the channel bank with an average rate of about 1.4 cm/yr over the first 1 km. Some sedimentation farther out did occur but is not well defined by our data. Overbank deposition is about 13% of the total load. Sedimentation rate per unit area is perhaps 10 times that measured on the Fly, but lateral migration on the Strickland is sufficiently high (average 5 m/yr) that overbank deposits are returned to the channel, significantly reducing potential net deposition to the floodplain. We conclude that the Strickland, which is nearly 10 times steeper than the Fly, and has much higher overbank deposition rates, nonetheless has less net deposition than the Fly because of the more vigorous lateral migration (which apparently results from the higher load). Hence, our field observations support our initial hypothesis, though the primary reason for this may be due to active lateral migration rather than low overbank deposition.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2006
- Bibcode:
- 2006AGUFMOS12A..05S
- Keywords:
-
- 1051 Sedimentary geochemistry;
- 1641 Sea level change (1222;
- 1225;
- 4556);
- 1820 Floodplain dynamics;
- 1825 Geomorphology: fluvial (1625)