Birth and evolution of the Rio Grande river system: 8 million years of downward integration
by Marisa Repasch, Ph.D. Presentation by Carmen Winn, May 11 2021
www.adobewhitewater.org
Rivers set the pace of regional landscape evolution, so by learning the rates of change in the Rio Grande and the processes that induce these changes, we can understand how and why the New Mexico landscape has evolved the way it has.The Rio Grande is a geologically young river, developing only within the last 8 million years. Despite its present resolute flow from the San Juan Mountains in Colorado over 3,000 km to the Gulf of Mexico, the Rio Grande was not a through-flowing river along its present length until about the last million years, or perhaps even the last ~500 ka. It extended its length progressively southward by integrating separate basins of the Rio Grande rift. To do this, the river needed to overcome drainage divides imposed by structures related to the Rio Grande rift. Over the course of her M.S. degree at the University of New Mexico, Marisa Repasch studied the potential climatic, tectonic, and magmatic forcings that influenced the river’s birth and evolution.During the course of her Ph.D. at the University of New Mexico, Carmen Winn studied with Marisa and will be presenting a brief overview of her research, including the geologic history of northern New Mexico and the formation of the Rio Grande river system.
Негізгі бет Rio Grande River Geology
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