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Paleoflood records from sinkholes using an example from the Ebro River floodplain, northeastern Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2017

Francisco Gutiérrez ,
Mario Zarroca ,
Carmen Castañeda ,
Domingo Carbonel ,
Jesús Guerrero ,
Rogelio Linares ,
Carles Roqué  and
Pedro Lucha
Francisco Gutiérrez*
Affiliation:
Departamento de Ciencias de la Tierra, Universidad de Zaragoza, C/. Pedro Cerbuna 12, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Mario Zarroca
Affiliation:
Departamento de Geología, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, E-08193 Barcelona, Spain
Carmen Castañeda
Affiliation:
Estación Experimental de Aula Dei, EEAD-CSIC, Av. Montañana 1001, 50059 Zaragoza, Spain
Domingo Carbonel
Affiliation:
Departamento de Ciencias de la Tierra, Universidad de Zaragoza, C/. Pedro Cerbuna 12, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Jesús Guerrero
Affiliation:
Departamento de Ciencias de la Tierra, Universidad de Zaragoza, C/. Pedro Cerbuna 12, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Rogelio Linares
Affiliation:
Departamento de Geología, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, E-08193 Barcelona, Spain
Carles Roqué
Affiliation:
Àrea de Geodinàmica Externa i Geomorfologia, Universitat de Girona, Campus Montilivi, E-17071 Girona, Spain
Pedro Lucha
Affiliation:
Departamento de Didáctica de las Ciencias Experimentales, Universidad de Zaragoza, C/. Pedro Cerbuna 12, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
*
*Corresponding author at: Departamento de Ciencias de la Tierra, Universidad de Zaragoza, C/. Pedro Cerbuna 12, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain. E-mail: [email protected] (F. Gutiérrez).
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Abstract

This work introduces for the first time the concept of using sinkholes in fluvial valleys as recorders of past floods. The notion is illustrated through the investigation of a complex sinkhole located in a broad floodplain underlain by salt-bearing Cenozoic evaporites. This active sinkhole comprises a large subsidence depression affecting the floodplain and the edge of a terrace, and a nested collapse sinkhole that used to host a sinkhole pond. A borehole drilled in the buried sinkhole pond revealed an ~7.8-m-thick fill that records around 2700 yr of clayey lacustrine deposition interrupted by three types of detrital facies. Two thick pebble gravel beds have been attributed to major high-competence floods: a paleoflood that occurred in Visigothic times (1537–1311 cal yr BP) and the 1961 Great Ebro River Flood, which is the largest event of the instrumental record. A trench dug in the portion of the terrace affected by subsidence exposed a mid-Holocene slack-water paleoflood deposit. The disadvantages and advantages of sinkholes as archives of past flood histories are discussed.

Keywords

PaleohydrologySinkhole lakesEvaporite karstSubsidence rateTrenching
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 88 , Issue 1 , July 2017 , pp. 71 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2017 

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