HR: 1340h
AN: H53C-1391    [Abstracts]
TI: Topographic Analysis of Landscape Morphology and Vegetation Patterns in a Semiarid Basin in Central New Mexico
AU: * Yetemen, O
EM: omer2@bigred.unl.edu
AF: Department of Geosciences, University of Nebraska-Lincon, 312 Bessey Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588, United States
AU: Istanbulluoglu, E
AF: Departments of Geosciences and Biological Systems Engineering, University of Nebraska- Lincoln, 200 Bessey Hall, Lincoln, USA 68588, United States
AU: Vivoni, E R
EM: vivoni@nmt.edu
AF: Department of Earth and Environmental Science, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, 244 MSEC, Socorro, NM 87801, United States
AB: We examine the linkages between basin morphology, vegetation patterns, and lithology in a semiarid basin located at the upper portions of the Rio Salado River in westcentral New Mexico, USA. In our study area, basin elevation plays a dominant role in the distribution of vegetation types from shrublands in lower elevations to grasslands and forests as elevation increases. Arguably the observed vegetation cover of the basin reflects the vegetation types of the modern climatic conditions of the late Holocene. This region is believed to be covered by spruce-fir, mixed-conifer, and subalpine forests prior to Pleistocene-Holocene climatic transition. We analyze mathematical properties of landforms including slope-area scaling relations, power-law distributions of areas, probability distributions of slopes, and drainage densities of more than 20 subcatchments with varying vegetation types. We found statistically significant differences in the organizational of properties of landforms as related to different vegetation types. These findings suggest a rapid geomorphologic response in the basin with climate- induced vegetation shifts that had occurred in the Holocene.
DE: 0790 Weathering (1625, 1886)
DE: 1625 Geomorphology and weathering (0790, 1824, 1825, 1826, 1886)
DE: 1813 Eco-hydrology
DE: 1824 Geomorphology: general (1625)
DE: 1826 Geomorphology: hillslope (1625)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting