Continental glaciation tends to "reset" large areas of a landscape with low-relief hummocky topography characterized by little or no integration into a surface-water drainage network. Over time channels carve into these landscapes and connect previously-noncontributing areas into the drainage network, either by headward erosion of headwater channels and ravines or by scour during seasonal overflow of ephemeral wetlands. In other words, drainage networks could develop from the "bottom up" or the "top down", or some combination of the two. The rates and controls on these processes might be different, and could lead to distinct drainage morphologies. This project combines fieldwork, geospatial analysis, and modeling to investigate how landscape-scale variables such as initial topography, climate, geology and vegetation influence rates and processes of drainage development. In addition, we will compare these "naturally integrated" landscapes with those altered by agricultural drainage infrastructure such as drainage tiles and ditches.
Contacts: Pete Moore, Maria Crawford, and Bradley Miller, plus collaborators at the University of Illinois and the University of Minnesota-Duluth.
Related Publications
McDanel, J.J., 2019, Noncontributing areas as indices of landscape development in the glaciated central lowlands, Iowa State University. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2019. 27665333.
Moore, P.L., J.J. McDanel, and B.A. Miller, 2020, Postglacial stream development rates: clues from a drainage capture recorded in alluvial soils. Poster presented virtually at the 2020 GSA annual meeting. moore_gsa-poster-2020.pdf
McDanel, J.J., N.A. Meghani, B.A. Miller & P.L. Moore, 2022, Harmonized landform regions in the glaciated Central Lowlands, USA, Journal of Maps, DOI: 10.1080/17445647.2022.2090866
Principal Investigator(s): Pete Moore