Reconstructing sediment age profiles from historical bathymetry changes in San Pablo Bay, California》.pdf

Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 73 (2007) 165e174 /locate/ecss Reconstructing sediment age profiles from historical bathymetry changes in San Pablo Bay, California Shawn A. Higgins a,*, Bruce E. Jaffe b, Christopher C. Fuller c a Department of Geography, University of WisconsineMadison, 160 Science Hall, 550N. Park Street, Madison, WI 53706, USA b U.S. Geological Survey Pacific Science Center, 400 Natural Bridges Dr., Santa Cruz, CA 95060, USA c Water Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey, 345 Middlefield Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA Received 20 July 2006; accepted 28 December 2006 Available online 6 March 2007 Abstract Sediment age profiles reconstructed from a sequence of historical bathymetry changes are used to investigate the subsurface distribution of historical sediments in a subembayment of the San Francisco Estuary. Profiles are created in a grid-based GIS modeling program that stratifies historical deposition into temporal horizons. The model’s reconstructions are supported by comparisons to profiles of 137Cs and excess 210Pb at 12 core sites. The predicted depth of the 1951 sediment horizon is positively correlated to the depth of the first occurrence of 137Cs at sites that have been depositional between recent surveys. Reconstructions at sites that have been erosional since the 1951 survey are supported by a lack of detectable 137Cs and excess 210Pb below the upper 6e16 cm of the core. A new data set of predicted near-surface sediment ages was created to illustrate an application of this approach. Res