Holocene alluvial chronology of One Tree Creek, southern Alberta, Canada

Evans, D.J.A., Campbell, I.A. and Lemmen, D.S. (2004) Holocene alluvial chronology of One Tree Creek, southern Alberta, Canada. Geografiska Annaler. Series A: Physical Geography, 86A, pp. 117-130.

Abstract

An alluvial chronology for the One Tree Creek basin, a southern tributary of the Red Deer River in southern Alberta, is reconstructed using terrace and palaeochannel remnants and associated radiocarbon dated bones. Prior to the development of One Tree Creek as a northeastward flowing tributary, the prairie surface was scoured by proglacial floodwaters decanting from Glacial Lake Bassano/Patricia in the west. Radiocarbon dates on bones from the bedload gravels in palaeochannels provide a morphochronology of Holocene stream incision. Tentative average incision rates for the middle and upper reaches are calculated at 0.34–0.38 cm a-1 since 2.8 ka BP and 0.80 – 1.60 cm and 0.81 – 0.96 cm a-1 for the two periods of 1870 to 1230 BP and 1230 BP to modern respectively. Terraces and palaeochannels dating to the period of highest incision (1870 BP to modern) include numerous reworked bones dating to earlier periods, indicating that fluvial downcutting triggered slope instability and terrace reworking. Although the lower bedrock reaches of the creek may have incised down to the present level of the Red Deer River during early postglacial time, the middle and upper reaches were rapidly incised into Quaternary sediments during the late Holocene when climatic conditions were more humid.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: UNSPECIFIED
• Authors: Evans, D.J.A., Campbell, I.A., and Lemmen, D.S.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Geographical and Earth Sciences
• Journal Name: Geografiska Annaler. Series A: Physical Geography
• ISSN: 0435-3676