Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Seasonal Biogeochemistry And Mineral Cycling Of The Middle Rio Grande Alluvial Aquifer, New Mexico, David Stewart Vinson

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

The Rio Grande in central New Mexico flows through a semi-arid, historically aggrading Quaternary rift basin. Flow regulation measures include dams, irrigation diversions, levees, and bank stabilization. These have caused severe impairment including incision, lowered water tables, and less overbank flooding; disrupted groundwater - surface water interactions; altered seasonal organic carbon dynamics; and declining native biota. Previously dynamic flowpaths in the shallow alluvial aquifer (hyporheic corridor) have become are less reversible due to parallel drain ditches with lower beds than the river. These ditches impose relatively static hydraulic gradients on the alluvial aquifer that force water to flow from the …

Biogeochemistry Of The Middle Rio Grande Bosque: Links Among Surface Water, Groundwater, And Sediments, Susan E. Block

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

The potential for water contamination is great in areas where land use is both urban and agricultural. Such land uses can load the surface water and groundwater with nutrients and toxic trace metals. Water pollution can be further increased when natural watersheds have been altered by human activities. The surface and groundwaters of the Middle Rio Grande, NM, USA are part of one such ecosystem.

Because redox processes are important controls on nutrient cycling and contaminant transport, it is vital to understand the redox zonation of an aquifer. This research has been conducted to address such biogeochemical zonation in the …

A Late Pleistocene And Holocene High-Resolution Glacial And Paleoclimate Record From The Southern Sangre De Cristo Mountains, Northern New Mexico, Jake Armour

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

Bog deposits in the Winsor Creek drainage basin, southern Sangre de Cristo Mountains, New Mexico contain a high-resolution record of Pleistocene to Holocene glacial activity. Sediment cores were recovered from an alpine bog (elevation 3,100 m) behind a Pinedale age moraine, 2 km from a high-elevation (-3600 m) cirque. Three cores reached glacial talus and consist of -6 meters of finely laminated to coarsely laminated lake clays, grading into gyttja. Superimposed on this long-term, lake-bog transition record are many distinct coarse-grained detrital packages punctuating times of rapid environmental change.

Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) carbon dating, sedimentology, variations in rock magnetic …