Project Info

Fluvial fans – a new type of paleo-climate proxy?

Piret Plink-Bjorklund | pplink@mines.edu

Fluvial fans are a type of river deposits that form large fan-shaped bodies. There is an ongoing debate on whether fluvial fans are linked to specific climate types (Leier et al., 2005 vs Weissmann et al., 2010). The goal of this project is to use satellite imagery and document global occurrence of fluvial fans, to analyze whether or not they occur in certain climate zones. The hypothesis is that fluvial fan occurrences are linked to climates with variable discharge, where rainfall is intense and highly seasonal such as in monsoon zone and subtropics. If proven correct then we can use fluvial fan occurrences in ancient records as an indicator of specific pale-climate conditions on Earth as well as on other planetary bodies.

More Information

Leier, A.L., DeCelles, P.G., and Pelletier, J.D., 2005, Mountains, monsoons, and megafans: Geology, v.
33, no. 4, p. 289–292, doi: 10.1130/G21228.1.

Weissmann, G.S., Hartley, A.J., Nichols, G.J., Scuderi, L.A., Olson, M., Buehler, H., and Banteah, R.,
2010, Fluvial form in modern continental sedimentary basins: Distributive fluvial systems: Geology,
v. 38, no. 1, p. 39–42, doi: 10.1130/G30242.1.

Grand Engineering Challenge: Not applicable