NDLI: Formation and early history of Lakes Pepin and St. Croix of the upper Mississippi River

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Blumentritt, Dylan J. Wright, Herbert E. Stefava, Vania
Copyright Year	2009
Abstract	Study of Lake Pepin and Lake St. Croix began more than a century ago, but new information has permitted a closer look at the geologic history of these two riverine lakes located on the upper Mississippi River system. Drainages from large proglacial lakes Agassiz and Duluth at the end of the last glaciation helped shape the current valleys. As high-discharge outlet waters receded, tributary streams deposited fans of sediment in the incised river valleys. These tributary fans dammed the main river, forming riverine lakes. Lake Pepin was previously thought to be a single long continuous lake, extending for 80 km from its dam at the Chippewa River fan all the way up to St. Paul, with an arm extending up the St. Croix valley. Recent borings taken at bridge and dam locations show more than a single section of lake sediments, indicating a more complex history. The Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers did not always follow their current paths. Valleys cut into bedrock but now buried by glacial sediment indicate former river courses, with the most recent of these from the last interglacial period marked at the surface by chains of lakes. The morphology of the Mississippi valley bottom, and thus the morphology of Lake Pepin as it filled the valley, is reflect in part by the existence of these old valleys but also by the presence of glacial outwash terraces and the alluvial fans of tributary streams. A sediment core taken in Lake Pepin near Lake City had a piece of wood in gravels just below lake sediments that dated to 10.3 ka cal. BP, indicating that the lake formed as the Chippewa River fan grew shortly after the floodwaters of Lakes Agassiz and Duluth receded. Data from new borings indicate small lakes were dammed behind several tributary fans in the Mississippi River valley between the modern Lake Pepin and St. Paul. One tributary lake, here called Early Lake Vermillion, may have hydraulically dammed the St. Croix River, creating an incipient Lake St. Croix. The tributary fans from the Vermillion River, the Cannon River, and the Chippewa River all served to segment the main river valley into a series of riverine lakes. Later the growth of the Chippewa fan surpassed that of the Vermillion and Cannon fans to create a single large lake, here called late Lake Pepin, which extended upstream to St. Paul. Sediment cores taken from Lake Pepin did not have significant organic matter to develop a chronology from radiocarbon dating. Rather, magnetic features were matched with those from a Lake St. Croix core, which did have a known radiocarbon chronology. The Pepin delta migration rate was then estimated by projecting the elevations of the top of the buried lake sediments to the dated Lake Pepin core, using an estimated slope of 10 cm/km, the current slope of Lake Pepin sediment surface. By these approximations, the Lake Pepin delta prograded past Hastings 6.0 ka cal BP and Red Wing 1.4 ka cal BP.
Starting Page	545
Ending Page	562
Page Count	18
File Format	PDF
ISSN	09212728
Journal	Journal of Paleolimnology
Volume Number	41
Issue Number	4
e-ISSN	15730417
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2009-01-10
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Mississippi River Holocene Sediments Lake Pepin Lake St. Croix Geology Freshwater & Marine Ecology Physical Geography Climate Change Sedimentology Paleontology
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Earth-Surface Processes Aquatic Science

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

Recent water quality trends and a comparison to sediment-core records for two riverine lakes of the Upper Mississippi River basin: Lake St. Croix and Lake Pepin

Historical changes in sediment and phosphorus loading to the upper Mississippi River: mass-balance reconstructions from the sediments of Lake Pepin

A sediment record of trace metal loadings in the Upper Mississippi River

Historical trends affecting accumulation of sediment and phosphorus in Lake Pepin, upper Mississippi River, USA

A novel repeat-coring approach to reconstruct recent sediment, phosphorus, and mercury loading from the upper Mississippi River to Lake Pepin, USA

Historical trace metal loading to a large river recorded in the sediments of Lake St. Croix, USA

Sources of Sediment in Lake Pepin on the Upper Mississippi River in Response to Holocene Climatic Changes

Holocene climate and environmental history of East Greenland inferred from lake sediments

A whole-basin stratigraphic record of sediment and phosphorus loading to the St. Croix River, USA

Formation and early history of Lakes Pepin and St. Croix of the upper Mississippi River

Similar Documents

Recent water quality trends and a comparison to sediment-core records for two riverine lakes of the Upper Mississippi River basin: Lake St. Croix and Lake Pepin

Historical changes in sediment and phosphorus loading to the upper Mississippi River: mass-balance reconstructions from the sediments of Lake Pepin

A sediment record of trace metal loadings in the Upper Mississippi River

Historical trends affecting accumulation of sediment and phosphorus in Lake Pepin, upper Mississippi River, USA

A novel repeat-coring approach to reconstruct recent sediment, phosphorus, and mercury loading from the upper Mississippi River to Lake Pepin, USA

Historical trace metal loading to a large river recorded in the sediments of Lake St. Croix, USA

Sources of Sediment in Lake Pepin on the Upper Mississippi River in Response to Holocene Climatic Changes

Holocene climate and environmental history of East Greenland inferred from lake sediments

A whole-basin stratigraphic record of sediment and phosphorus loading to the St. Croix River, USA

Formation and early history of Lakes Pepin and St. Croix of the upper Mississippi River