Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/E014143/1
How do rivers respond to uplift? A study of river transience.
Fellowship Award
- Fellow:
- Dr JD Jansen, University of Glasgow, School of Geographical & Earth Sciences
- Grant held at:
- University of Glasgow, School of Geographical & Earth Sciences
- Science Area:
- Freshwater
- Earth
- Overall Classification:
- Earth
- ENRIs:
- Natural Resource Management
- Global Change
- Science Topics:
- Earth Surface Processes
- Sediment/Sedimentary Processes
- Quaternary Science
- Hydrological Processes
- Abstract:
- Since the retreat of the great ice-sheet that covered most of northern Europe about 10,000 years ago, the land surface has been uplifting. This uplift, known as glacial rebound, is most rapid in Scandinavia. Along the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia uplift is measured in several millimetres per year/a rate easily noticeable within in a human lifetime. As a result, Sweden's eastern coastline is extending seaward, and over the centuries fishing villages have constantly had to 'relocate' to keep pace. This project is aimed at understanding some of the consequences of the glacial rebound for the landscape in general but particularly for the rivers. In response to the rebound, the large Swedish rivers have eroded their channel beds creating deep river gorges over time. The gorges are part of a set of adjustments the rivers make in order to maximise their ability to erode the landscape as it rises beneath them. Waterfalls, also known as knickpoints, are a common feature of this process. If a river has sufficient energy, a waterfall may erode the channel bed and migrate upstream as it does so. Quantifying the rate of this migration is one of the key aims of the project, because this indicates how fast the landscape is responding to the glacial rebound. Some waterfalls migrate up to several millimetres per year. My previous research has found that the rate of waterfall migration is dependent upon the rate of flow in the river: large, powerful rivers erode rapidly, and small rivers erode very little at all. Determining what other factors control the rate of knickpoint migration is another major aim. As knickpoints migrate upstream they leave high abandoned sections of channel in their wake. These bedrock remnants, known as strath terraces, will be used to determine the rate of knickpoint retreat via a relatively new technique. 'Cosmogenic nuclides' are produced in minerals when rocks are bombarded by cosmic-rays from outer space. This production decreases with depth beneath the rock's surface. By measuring the amount of cosmogenic nuclides in a sample, the age of a rock surface can be estimated, because the amount of cosmogenic nuclides accumulate at a rate proportional to the length of time the rocks have been at the surface, and inversely proportional to the rate of erosion. The data collected from the rivers and strath terraces will later be used in numerical models that attempt to simulate the processes of river erosion. This is useful because the resultant model can be applied to rivers and landscapes elsewhere in order to understand the fundamental physical principles that underlie how rivers respond to uplift. For this part of the project the NERC Fellow will visit Joseph Fourier University, Grenoble, to work with a leading expert in numerical modelling: Prof. Peter van der Beek.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/E014143/1
- Grant Stage:
- Awaiting Completion
- Scheme:
- Postdoctoral Fellow (FEC)
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Postdoctoral Fellowship
This fellowship award has a total value of £305,983
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| DI - Other Costs | Indirect - Indirect Costs | DI - Staff | DA - Estate Costs | DI - T&S | DA - Other Directly Allocated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £18,392 | £118,075 | £115,998 | £29,901 | £17,119 | £6,495 |
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