On and around the Cincinnati Arch and Niagara Escarpment: Geological Field Trips in Ohio and Kentucky for the GSA North-Central Section Meeting, Dayton, Ohio, 2012

This volume, produced in conjunction with the GSA North-Central Section Meeting held in Dayton, Ohio, April 2012, has a mix of papers, ranging from stratigraphy, paleontology, and hydrogeology, to geomorphology, drainage basins, and building stones. The geographic spread of the chapters focuses mainly on an area bounded by those counties adjacent to Montgomery County, but also extends beyond-from Paulding County in the north to Georgetown, Kentucky, in the south. Topics include the Silurian stratigraphy of southwestern Ohio, drainage basins of the Mad River and Little Miami River, the relationship between geology and groundwater of the Inner Bluegrass Region, Kentucky (and its connection to the distilling and aging of bourbon), and the building stones of Dayton, as well as an introduction to the geology of the Dayton area.
Temporal and spatial scales of stream study, west-central Ohio
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Published:January 01, 2012
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CiteCitation
John B. Ritter, 2012. "Temporal and spatial scales of stream study, west-central Ohio", On and around the Cincinnati Arch and Niagara Escarpment: Geological Field Trips in Ohio and Kentucky for the GSA North-Central Section Meeting, Dayton, Ohio, 2012, Michael R. Sandy, Daniel Goldman
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Abstract
The objective of this field trip is to examine variability in stream systems in west-central Ohio at different time and space scales. Scales of study range from watershed changes over 103–104 years as drainage networks are established during glacial retreat, to reach-scale changes in tributary streams in response to human impacts and land use change over 101–102 years, to diurnal and event-driven changes in water quality over 10–2 to 10–3 years. Drainage network changes in the Little Miami River and Mad River systems occurred through stream capture and were dependent on the location of early meltwater channels relative to ice lobe position and relict bedrock topography. At the reach scale, channel morphology (width, depth, slope, shape, and pattern) is dependent on mean discharge of water and sediment to the reach. Tributary streams to the Little Miami River, Mad River, and Buck Creek illustrate the impact that historic changes in land use, water and sediment discharge, channelization, and straightening of stream reaches have had on channel morphology and vertical stability. At the cross-section scale, flow characteristics, including stream stage and physical water quality parameters (temperature, pH, specific conductivity, oxidation-reduction potential, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity), are being measured on Buck Creek and Beaver Creek. Though some characteristics change diurnally in response to internal stream processes, event-based changes in response to stormflow reflect source area contributions of runoff and sediment.