2021 Virtual Undergraduate Research Symposium

2021 Virtual Undergraduate Research Symposium

Climate-Driven Changes in Paleocene River Systems

Climate-Driven Changes in Paleocene River Systems

PROJECT NUMBER: 57 | AUTHOR: Henry Lopez, Physics

MENTOR: Piret Plink-Bjorklund, Geology and Geological Engineering

ABSTRACT

During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) approximately 56 Ma, the global average temperature rose 5-8 degrees Celsius due to a release of more than 4000 Pg of carbon. The result was a drastic change in climate, which in turn directly affected the global hydrological cycle, ecosystems, and thus river systems. This project investigates the climate-driven changes to river systems across a latitudinal profile and links them to specific climate drivers, these include seasonal/inter-annual precipitation variability and aridity/humidity. The implications of this research include a better understanding of these changes caused by the anomalously warm Early Eocene. This can be extended into a better understanding of the future of rivers as it is predicted that Early Eocene conditions will occur by 2150 due to anthropogenic effects. Based on data mining from published literature, this project presents the significant reiver systems changes caused by the PETM such as river size, water discharge, flood magnitude and aridity. These conclusions are based on changes in fluvial sand-body dimensions, paleosols (ancient soils), and sedimentary structures in pre-PETM and PETM paleo-rivers. Investigation of these river systems was conducted to establish a hypothesis about the relationship between climate change, river systems, and latitude to serve as a starting point for further paleoclimate analysis and predictions about future climate conditions. It was found that PETM rivers exhibited higher magnitude floods coupled with severe droughts at mid-latitudes. This indicates some implications involving both a decrease in water availability and limited agriculture across these latitudes by 2150.

PRESENTATION

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Henry Lopez is a second semester sophomore at Colorado School of Mines in good academic standing. He is majoring in Engineering Physics as of the spring 2021 semester. The department in which he conducted research with is the Geology and Geological Engineering department.

6 Comments

  1. Do you think you can convert your data to precipitation rate?
    Can you compare your latitude data to temperature records of that time? Or CO2 records? This will give an approximation of the climate state in this region in the future.

    • This would definitely connect some more dots and I will look into this further. The main point is, as mean annual temperatures rise globally, we will start seeing these same patterns in the same locations. Unfortunately there is limited data in this study area. As for the conversion to precipitation rates, this data was also scarce and often only the mean annual precipitation was given which is not a very representative data point for this river analysis. Instead, what played a greater role in the characteristics of these rivers is the precipitation range, which better represents the amount of precipitation in a specific amount of time, and thus discharge variability.

  2. Would rivers follow the same trends as those observed in the PETM ? What do these changes tell us about what overall climates we can expect?

    • If this was further research both in literature and in the field. I think we could be quite accurate in predicting when and where we we will see these kinds of rivers and consequently the floods that accompany them. The biggest thing these changes can tell us about future climates is a greater intensity in hydrological cycles globally.

  3. This was a really cool project! You went really in depth about the types of structures studied, and analysis. I would agree with comments above in asking what these river trends mean for future rivers.
    Thanks!

    • Thank you, I appreciate your comment! See the above replies!

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