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Reconciling Holocene Alluvial Records In Buckskin Wash, Southern Utah, Jonathan E. Harvey

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Most approaches to interpreting alluvial records in drylands fall into one of two categories: (1) The "arroyo problem," wherein workers study cycles of streambed aggradation and degradation in broad, unconstricted alluvial valleys; and (2) paleoflood hydrology, where alluvial sequences in constricted bedrock canyons are interpreted as paleoflood deposits from streams with stable channel grade and geometry. Both approaches can be valid in their end-member settings, but there is confusion about how the two record types relate in a single drainage. We address this disconnect in Buckskin Wash, an ephemeral stream that consists of a broad alluvial reach draining into a …