preview

A Study On Spring Discharge At Zuni Salt Lake

Good Essays

This dissertation is organized into three separate studies (appendices) that I plan to publish in peer-reviewed journals. The first appendix presents a study that establishes a latest Pleistocene age for volcanic eruptions at Zuni Salt Lake. The second appendix evaluates the hypothesis that the late Holocene hydroclimatic history of spring discharge at Cienega Amarilla is driven largely by variations in El Niño frequency and intensity and the resultant variations in winter precipitation. The third appendix examines the nature and timing of fluvial geomorphic change in mid-elevation valley and piedmont areas of the Carrizo Wash watershed and identifies the climatic factors driving this landscape change. Each of these appendices is described in more detail below.
Terminal Pleistocene volcanic eruptions at Zuni Salt Lake, west-central New Mexico, USA
This study re-evaluates the age and volcanic history of Zuni Salt Lake maar, a volcanic crater in the Red Hill–Quemado volcanic field that holds great significance in the oral traditions of a handful of tribes including the Zuni and Hopi. Zuni Salt Lake is often depicted as a textbook example of a maar, but despite its notoriety previous dating attempts are limited to argon dates with very poor precision and a radiocarbon age compromised by hardwater effects. These earlier dating results suggested that the Zuni Salt Lake eruptions predated ~27 ka, initially prompting me to assume that volcanic activity at this vent had little

Get Access