HR: 0800h
AN: H51C-1152    [Abstracts]
TI: Morphometric Classification and Multivariate Analysis of Drainage Networks in Arid Rift Basins Using Remote Sensing Data, Baja California, Mexico
AU: * El-Sobky, H F
EM: elsobky@geo.tamu.edu
AF: Texas A and M University, Dept. of Geology and Geophysics, College Station, TX 77843 United States
AU: Dorobek, S L
EM: dorobek@geo.tamu.edu
AF: Texas A and M University, Dept. of Geology and Geophysics, College Station, TX 77843 United States
AB: Drainage networks in continental rift basins are strongly linked to bedrock lithology, climate, and fault systems, although quantitative analyses that demonstrate these relationships are generally lacking. We used SRTM data and enhanced TM+ images from Baja California, Mexico to investigate the morphometric characteristics of drainage basins along the eastern side of the peninsula, which is typified by numerous rift basins of late Miocene age. These basins are now in their early post-rift stages of evolution and are located in a similar climatic zone along the entire length of Baja, although bedrock lithology and hypsometry for each basin is drastically different. As a first step, SRTM data, enhanced TM+ images, ASTER images, and geostatistical techniques (cokriging methods and Alternating Conditional Expectations algorithms) were used to construct digital terrain models (DTM) with 15-meter spatial resolution for nearly the entire eastern rift province of Baja. Watersheds were extracted from the DTM, which then allowed the uniqueness of each drainage basin to be characterized quantitatively using various basin attributes and morphometric indices. Each basin's geomorphic development and the topographic forcing factors responsible were then examined and classified using multivariate statistics. Hypsometry for each basin was generated and found to be critical for evaluating the "tectonic maturity" of each basin. More specifically, the hypsometric integral is sensitive to the recent tectonic history of each basin. Multivariate analyses (Principal Component and Cluster Analyses) were also used to classify Baja rift basins into similar geomorphometric groups.
DE: 8040 Remote sensing
DE: 8109 Continental tectonics--extensional (0905)
DE: 1824 Geomorphology (1625)
DE: 1848 Networks
DE: 1625 Geomorphology and weathering (1824, 1886)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting