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Geomorphologic Controls On The Age Of Particulate Organic Carbon From Small Mountainous And Upland Rivers, El Leithold, Ne Blair, Dw Perkey
Geomorphologic Controls On The Age Of Particulate Organic Carbon From Small Mountainous And Upland Rivers, El Leithold, Ne Blair, Dw Perkey
VIMS Articles
To assess the role that erosion processes play in governing the character of particulate organic carbon (POC) discharged from small mountainous and upland rivers, a suite of watersheds from Oregon, California, and New Zealand was investigated. The rivers share similar geology, tectonic setting, and climate, but have sediment yields that range over 3 orders of magnitude. The (14)C age of the POC loads is highly correlated with sediment yield. Carbon isotope mass balances reveal that the rivers carry bimodal mixtures of modern-plant-and ancient-rock-derived OC. At lower yields, modern plant OC dominates the material delivered to the river by sheetwash and …