Sedimentary texture of crevasse splays formed by present-day and palaeofloods against the background of floodplain geomorphology and lithofacies exposed in channel cut banks (in the Vistula River valley between Warsaw and Płock, Poland)

Abstract

Abstract On the floodplain of a sandy, braided river in the Central European Lowland, we studied the sedimentary texture of two crevasse splays, which were: (1) formed due to a levee breach in the 2010 flood, and widely documented by hydrological, bathymetric and LIDAR data, (2) developed under natural conditions when the channel was not embanked by artificial levees (dikes). We compare the sedimentological results with a geomorphological map, a model of the floodplain geomorphology showing different facies of fluvial deposition derived from a meandering river, and deposits in cut banks of the river channel. The statistical parameters of the grain size composition and geomorphic features of the splay, shaped by overbank flow through the broken embankment, are similar to the natural landform. Most of the cut banks (60% of alluvial deposits were mapped there) consist of lithofacies representing proximal floodplain; 30% were distal floodplain (muds), and 10% channel (coarse sand with gravel, pebbles and cobbles). We speculate about the palaeogeography of the Lower Vistula, and the origin of muds and coarse deposits in the banks of the channel. We link these unusual sediments with avulsion, deposition in side arms during ice-jam conditions, and dredging of the channel bottom by suction excavator, which reached the fluvioglacial, suballuvial layer on the bedrock protrusion.