Grand Canyon | EPFL Graph Search

The Grand Canyon (Öngtupqa, Wi:kaʼi:la, Bidááʼ Haʼaztʼiʼ Tsékooh, Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, Gran Cañón or Gran Cañón del Colorado) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a mile (). The canyon and adjacent rim are contained within Grand Canyon National Park, the Kaibab National Forest, Grand Canyon–Parashant National Monument, the Hualapai Indian Reservation, the Havasupai Indian Reservation and the Navajo Nation. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of the preservation of the Grand Canyon area and visited it on numerous occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery. Nearly two billion years of Earth's geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted. While some aspects about the history of incision of the canyon are de

Triggering mechanisms and geomorphological implications of debris flows in subaquatic canyons: The Rhone delta (Lake Geneva, Switzerland, France)

Nicolas Le Dantec

Subaquatic canyons in deltas are major pathways for the transport of particles from rivers / the upper delta slops to the deep basins. They represent active environments with frequent deltaic failures and massmovements potentially bearing hazard-related (tsunami waves) and economic (infrastructure damages) implications. Understanding sedimentary processes and mass-movement triggering mechanisms is crucial to assess related consequences and to carry out geological risk assessments. The Rhone River delta in Lake Geneva (Switzerland, France) is a complex underwater structure with several active and inactive subaquatic canyons, similar to marine deltas but at a smaller scale. The difference between two bathymetric surveys in 1986 and 2002 revealed an inversion in the topography of the distal active canyon, as a former distal canyon was transformed into a mound-like structure. A 12 m-thick layer was deposited in the canyon and modified the sediment transfer conduit. Sediment cores from this deposit were retrieved in-situ in 2002 and 2011 via the “F.-A. Forel” and Russian MIR submersibles, respectively. These cores contained a homogeneous, sandy material. Its sediment texture, grain-size, high density and shear strength, and low water content suggests that it corresponds to a debris-flow deposit that possibly took place after the initiation of a mass movement due to a scarp failure in proximal areas of the canyon. In addition, in situ geotechnical tests on the modern canyon floor have shown a soft top layer above a stiffer substratum. This soft layer, which increases in thickness towards distal areas, may act as a basal surface for hydroplaning, and might have allowed the debrite to be transported 9 km away from the source of the scarp failure. Similarities in textures and grain-size of the debris flow and levee deposits hint at the proximal northern levee as the source of this material. Rapid sediment loading in this area, at the rate of >2.5cm/yr, steep slopes in the canyon walls and increased pore pressure due to high methane concentrations may have reduced the stability of the canyon wall in this area. Discrete sandy intervals show very high methane concentrations and thus could correspond to potentially weak layers prone to scarp failures. Nevertheless, the probable cause for the 2000 AD Rhone delta event was an exceptional flood in October 2000 which undercut the slope, and subsequently decreased the stability by increasing the shear stress and triggered the mass failure in the already unstable canyon walls. Besides economic and hazard-related implications, such mass failures represent significant and underestimated causes in morphological evolution of underwater canyons by damming the channel and, eventually, forming short-term meanders susceptible to further erosion, as seen in a recent multibeam bathymetric map obtained in 2012.

2012

Sedimentary processes and triggering mechanisms of debris flows in subaquatic canyons in Rhone delta (Lake Geneva, Switzerland, France)

Nicolas Le Dantec

Subaquatic canyons in deltas are major pathways for the transport of particles from land to the deep basins. They represent active environments with frequent deltaic failures and mass-movement deposits potentially leading to hazardous (tsunami waves) and economic (infrastructure damages) implications. Understanding sedimentary processes and mass-movement triggering mechanisms is crucial to assess related consequences and to carry out geological risk assessments. The Rhone River delta in Lake Geneva (Switzerland, France) is a complex underwater structure with several active and inactive subaquatic canyons, similar to marine deltas but at a smaller scale. The difference between two bathymetric surveys in 1986 and 2002 revealed an inversion in the topography of the distal active canyon, as a former distal canyon was transformed into a mound-like structure. A 12 m-thick layer was deposited in the canyon and modified the sediment transfer conduit. Sediment cores from this deposit were retrieved in-situ in 2002 and 2011 via the "F.-A. Forel" and Russian MIR submersibles, respectively. These cores contained a homogeneous, sandy material. Its sediment texture, grain-size, high density and shear strength, and low water content suggests that it corresponds to a debris-flow deposit that possibly took place after the initiation of a mass movement due to a scarp failure in proximal areas of the canyon. In addition, in-situ geotechnical tests on the modern canyon floor have shown a soft top layer above a stiffer substratum. This soft layer, which increases in thickness towards distal areas, may act as a basal surface for hydroplaning, and might have allowed the debrite to be transported ~9 km away from the source of the scarp failure. Similarities in textures and grain-size of the debris flow and levee deposits hints at proximal northern levee as the source of this material. Rapid sediment loading in this area, at the rate of >3cm/yr, steep slopes in the canyon walls and increased pore pressure due to high methane concentrations may have reduced the stability of the canyon wall in this area. Discrete sandy intervals show very high methane concentrations and thus could correspond to potentially weak layers prone to scarp failures. Nevertheless, the probable cause for the 2000 AD Rhone delta event was an exceptional flood in October 2000 which undercut the slope, and subsequently decreased the stability by increasing the shear stress and triggered the mass failure in the already unstable canyon walls. Besides economic and hazardous implications, such mass failures represent significant and underestimated causes in morphological evolution of underwater canyons by damming the channel and, eventually, forming short-term meanders susceptible to further erosion.

2012

The role of mass-transport deposits and turbidites in shaping modern lacustrine deepwater channels

Nicolas Le Dantec

Subaquatic canyons are an important pathway for sediment transport into oceanic and lacustrine basins. Understanding the mechanisms governing their geomorphological evolution is a key to predict the sediment distribution patterns through these sediment conduits as well as to implement geo-hazard assessments. Submerged channels developed in large lacustrine basins offer a small-scale natural laboratory to understand the sedimentological processes operating in submarine channels. For this reason, a multidisciplinary research initiative-including time-lapse, high-resolution bathymetric surveys, innovative coring using submersibles, in situ geotechnical tests, and geophysical and sedimentological analyses-was applied to unravel the factors controlling the geomorphological evolution of the Rhone delta channels in Lake Geneva during the last decades. The morphology of the lacustrine Rhone Delta consists of a freshwater delta system deeply incised by nine canyons (C1-C9). Geotechnical measurements in proximal areas and sediment cores retrieved in the distal fans at the end of each canyon revealed complex sediment dynamics. No turbidity current events have occurred in the easternmost canyons (C1-C4) during the last decades while the western canyons sediment record (C5-C9) indicated repeated flushing events during the 20(th) century. The main "active" canyon C8 has been dominated by turbidite activity on the canyon floor with frequent overspill events along the levees. A large 6.2 x 10(6) m(3) Mass-Transport Deposit (MTD) that resembles a debrite in its upper section was found in the distal area of the active channel. The MTD was dated at 1998-2000 CE and most likely originated from proximal delta areas affected by frequent slope failures of the steep channel walls. In situ geotechnical tests on the modern proximal channel floor showed an unconsolidated soft top-layer that might have served as a low-friction surface favouring the MTD long run-out distance to the distal part of the channel. The MTD has had a major effect morphological evolution of the distal channel by filling the existing conduit, indirectly promoting the formation of a new channel. The role of MTD emplacement in subaquatic channels has important implications for hydrocarbon exploration as they control channel avulsion processes and the location of sand-prone deposits. This study gives a detailed insight on poorly investigated short-term sedimentological dynamics that affect the long-term evolution of turbidite systems and channel migration processes. This detailed model of a river-dominated deep-lacustrine depositional system can be used as an analog for similar modern and ancient deep-water systems. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Elsevier2016

The role of mass-transport deposits and turbidites in shaping modern lacustrine deepwater channels

Nicolas Le Dantec

Elsevier2016

Triggering mechanisms and geomorphological implications of debris flows in subaquatic canyons: The Rhone delta (Lake Geneva, Switzerland, France)

Nicolas Le Dantec

2012

Sedimentary processes and triggering mechanisms of debris flows in subaquatic canyons in Rhone delta (Lake Geneva, Switzerland, France)

Nicolas Le Dantec

2012