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Late Holocene debris cone evolution in Glen Feshie, western Cairngorm Mountains, Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

Vanessa Brazier  and
Colin K. Ballantyne
Vanessa Brazier
Affiliation:
Vanessa Brazier, Department of Geography, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Colin K. Ballantyne
Affiliation:
Colin K. Ballantyne, Department of Geography and Geology, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife KY16 9AL, Scotland, U.K.
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Abstract

Recent river erosion of three coalescing debris cones in Glen Feshie has exposed a complex sequence of debris flow units. Radiocarbon dating of organic matter from interbedded buried soils reveals that the soil at the base of the sequence was buried at c. 2000 yr BP, but that the bulk of the cones accumulated since the fifteenth century AD. The episodic nature of cone development is attributable to lateral migration of the River Feshie, with periods of cone accumulation when the river occupied the far side of its floodplain alternating with periods of erosion when the river impinged on the cones. There is no evidence to suggest that recent cone accumulation is related to anthropogenic vegetation disturbance, but phases of cone accumulation show a broad temporal correspondence with periods of Late Holocene climatic deterioration. The cones are essentially paraglacial in that their continuing accumulation depends on a supply of sediment derived from glacial and periglacial deposits upslope. The form of debris-flow units indicates that flows at this site were less viscous than most ‘hillslope’ flows, and cone volumes indicate an average annual accumulation of c. 50–60 m3 of sediment over the past c. 300years.

Keywords

Climatic deteriorationdebris flowsdenudation ratesparaglacialradiocarbon dating.
Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 80 , Issue 1 , 1989 , pp. 17 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1989

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