Journal article
Are we missing the tail (and the tale) of residence time distributions in watersheds?
Geophysical research letters, Vol.40(17), pp.4633-4637
09/16/2013
DOI: 10.1002/grl.50895
Abstract
Residence times provide vital information on hydrological, geochemical, and ecological processes in watersheds. The common perception is that mean residence times in watersheds are very short, on the order of days to years. However, there is growing concern that longer residence times of centuries to millennia are not being captured by traditional surface water age-dating methods. We hypothesize that if mean residence times are biased short, then weathering rates calculated from mean residence times will be forced unrealistically high to match observed solute concentrations. We test this hypothesis by calculating weathering rates from springs based upon residence times estimated using three different age-dating methods. Observed solute concentrations require unrealistically large weathering rates if typical short residence times are employed as compared to rates derived from longer residence times. Residence time distributions in watersheds have substantially longer tails than previously thought, with implications for age-dating methods and their interpretation to infer process behavior.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Are we missing the tail (and the tale) of residence time distributions in watersheds?
- Creators
- Marty D. Frisbee - New Mexico Institute of Mining and TechnologyJohn L. Wilson - New Mexico Institute of Mining and TechnologyJesus D. Gomez-Velez - United States Geological SurveyFred M. Phillips - New Mexico Institute of Mining and TechnologyAndrew R. Campbell - New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Geophysical research letters, Vol.40(17), pp.4633-4637
- DOI
- 10.1002/grl.50895
- ISSN
- 0094-8276
- eISSN
- 1944-8007
- Publisher
- Amer Geophysical Union
- Number of pages
- 5
- Grant note
- New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute EAR-9876800 / SAHRA Science and Technology Center of the National Science Foundation (NSF); National Science Foundation (NSF) EAR-1015100 / Dynamic Groundwater Age Distributions: Exploring Watershed Scale Subsurface Systems (NSF); National Science Foundation (NSF) EAR-0814449 / New Mexico EPSCoR Track I-II (NSF); National Science Foundation (NSF); NSF - Office of the Director (OD) 0814449 / Office Of The Director; National Science Foundation (NSF); NSF - Office of the Director (OD) 1015100 / Directorate For Geosciences; National Science Foundation (NSF); NSF - Directorate for Geosciences (GEO)
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 09/16/2013
- Academic Unit
- Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Record Identifier
- 9984962531602771
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