Ravine alluvial fans as records of landscape change in the Le Sueur River Basin, southern Minnesota

Abstract

Ravine alluvial fans in the Le Sueur River Basin (LSRB) of south-central Minnesota record post-glacial Holocene changes and modern anthropogenic disturbances to land cover and hydrology in high-latitude watersheds. Seventy meters of base-level drop at the end of the last glaciation initiated millennia of incision that continues on the LSRB today. Onto this template of on-going incision, Euro-American land clearing and drainage of previously stable upland prairie and wetlands in the mid-1800s further increased erosion rates in the basin. Ravines, first-order channels that link low-gradient uplands with the deeply-incised channel network, experienced changes in erosion rates over time from both impacts, with the erosional history preserved in alluvial fans at the mouths of ravines where they terminate on fluvial terraces. Establishing a post-settlement chronology is difficult in the highly erosive knickzone of the Le Sueur. We take advantage of six fan deposits spread throughout the LSRB to determine the fluvial response of upland agricultural land conversion on steep first-order drainages. Ravines respond quickly to sediment and hydrology fluxes in the basin that are reflected in their alluvial fans as packages of post-settlement alluvium (PSA) and incision through fan surfaces. Bulk soil samples collected at 10-, 20-, 40-, 100-, and 200-centimeter depths on the selected fans as well as samples from the incised channel were analyzed for fly ash, spherical silt-sized grains that are a byproduct of coal combustion. The presence of fly ash as an in-situ stratigraphic marker at depth was used to calculate conservative post-settlement deposition rates of 0.93 and 1.67 cm/yr using observation techniques from high-powered transmitted and reflected light microscopes as well as scanning electron microscopy, respectively. These rates are a three-fold increase over generous Holocene deposition rates of 0.27 cm/yr. Incision through fan surfaces also marks post-settlement changes. Trenching and tile drainage on the uplands allowed for greater transport of water down ravines and onto fans. These results confirm land use change triggered an increase in upstream erosion and fan deposition followed by incision on short time scales.