Spatio-temporal reconstruction of avulsion history at the terminus of a modern dryland river system

Fluvial depositional architecture in an unconfined environment is governed by sediment dispersal across the alluvial plain through river-path switching by avulsion. Documented inter-avulsion periodicity from modern rivers ranges from tens to over a thousand years. In this study, a quantitative spatio-temporal reconstruction of avulsion...

Self-constraining of low-energy rivers explains low channel mobility and tortuous planforms

Meandering rivers are abundant on Earth, from the largest rivers to the smallest tributaries. The classical view of meandering rivers is a sinuous planform with rounded bends, which grow and migrate until they are cut-off. However, many low-energy meandering rivers have planforms that are much more complex than this classical view due to the...

Self-organizing avulsions in an endorheic dryland river system

Oblique aggradation: A novel explanation for sinuosity of low-energy streams in peat-filled valley systems

Low-energy streams in peatlands often have a high sinuosity. However, it is unknown how this sinuous planform formed, since lateral migration of the channel is hindered by relatively erosion-resistant banks. We present a conceptual model of Holocene morphodynamic evolution of a stream in a peat-filled valley, based on a palaeohydrological...

Climate-driven fluvial development and valley abandonment at the last glacial-interglacial transition (Oude IJssel-Rhine, Germany)

In the Weichselian, the Lower Rhine in the Dutch-German border region has used three courses, dissecting ice-marginal topography inherited from the Saalian. In the Late Weichselian, the three courses functioned simultaneously, with the central one gaining importance and the outer ones abandoning. This study aims to reconstruct the fluvial...

Palaeoecological study of a Weichselian wetland site in the Netherlands suggests a link with Dansgaard-Oeschger climate oscillation

Botanical microfossils, macroremains and oribatid mites of a Weichselian interstadial deposit in the central Netherlands point to a temporary, sub-arctic wetland in a treeless landscape. Radiocarbon dates and OSL dates show an age between ca. 54.6 and 46.6 ka cal BP. The vegetation succession, starting as a peat-forming wetland that developed...

Direct evidence for the participation of band-tails and excited-state tunnelling in the luminescence of irradiated feldspars

The significance and extent of band-tail states in the luminescence and dosimetry properties of natural aluminosilicates (feldspars) is investigated by means of studies using low temperature (10 K) irradiation and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) stimulation spectroscopy, and thermoluminescence (TL) in the range 10–200 K, made in...

Optically stimulated luminescence signals under various stimulation modes assuming first-order kinetics

We present mathematical descriptions of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) signals under linearly, hyperbolically, exponentially, and reciprocally increasing stimulation intensity for a one-trap one-recombination-center model assuming charge transfer governed by first-order kinetics. Depending on the stimulation mode, the OSL signal can be...

Luminescence dating of Netherlands’ sediments

Over the last decades luminescence dating techniques have been developed that allow earth scientists to determine the time of deposition of sediments. In this contribution we review: 1) the development of the methodology; 2) tests of the reliability of luminescence dating on Netherlands’ sediments; and 3) geological applications of the method in...

Micro-imaging synchrotron-laser interactions in wide band-gap luminescent materials

Sedimentary architecture and optical dating of Middle and Late Pleistocene Rhine-Meuse deposits – fluvial response to climate change, sea-level fluctuation and glaciation

Eight continuous corings in the west-central Netherlands show a 15 to 25 m thick stacked sequence of sandy to gravelly channel-belt deposits of the Rhine-Meuse system. This succession of fluvial sediments was deposited under net subsiding conditions in the southern part of the North Sea Basin and documents the response of the Rhine-Meuse river...