Biogeochemical Fluxes across Piedmont Slopes of the Jornada Basin

Author:

Abrahams Athol D.,Neave Melissa

Abstract

This chapter is an overview of recent studies of the movement of water, sediment, and nutrients across a principle piedmont slope, or bajada, of the Jornada Basin. Bajadas are extensive, gently sloping surfaces formed by the coalescence of alluvial fans and are a major landscape component of the basin and range province. Over the past four decades a considerable body of research has elucidated the form and function of alluvial fans (Bull 1977; Blair and McPherson 1994; Harvey 1997), but less attention has been paid to bajadas. In particular, the bajadas most neglected are those where channels converge and diverge at irregular intervals downslope. This type of bajada is found at the base of Summerford Mountain, the northernmost peak of the Doña Ana Mountains on the western edge of the Jornada Basin. For convenience, this bajada is hereafter referred to as the Summerford bajada. The research has involved rainfall simulation experiments on small plots, monitoring of two small watersheds on this bajada, and computer modeling of the processes operating in these watersheds and over the bajada as a whole. A detailed understanding of the hydrology and hydraulics of overland flow on this bajada requires a numerical model of the rainfall-runoff process. The objective of this chapter is to detail the model and draw conclusions from model simulations about hydrologic transports of sediment and nutrients across this bajada. Because these piedmonts are important surfaces in this desert (chapter 2) an understanding of their hydrologic and biogeochemical dynamics is crucial to understanding landscape dynamics in the basin and throughout arid regions. Summerford Mountain is a steep-sided, rocky inselberg (i.e., isolated mountain) that rises 380 m above the surrounding bajada to an elevation of 1,780 m. The mountain is composed of monzonite porphyry of Oligocene age (Seager et al. 1976) and has a fringing bajada on its northern and eastern sides. This study focuses on the bajada to the east, which extends 2.5 km to the basin floor at an average gradient of 4%.

Publisher

Oxford University Press

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