scholarly journals Combining Uranium, Boron, and Strontium Isotope Ratios (234U/238U, δ11B, 87Sr/86Sr) to Trace and Quantify Salinity Contributions to Rio Grande River in Southwestern United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Garcia ◽  
Pascale Louvat ◽  
Jerome Gaillardet ◽  
Syprose Nyachoti ◽  
Lin Ma
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
River Flow ◽  
Shallow Groundwater ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
Isotope Ratios ◽  
Critical Zone ◽  
Southwestern United States ◽  
Isotopic Compositions ◽  
Rio Grande River

In semi-arid to arid regions, both anthropogenic sources (urban and agriculture) and deeper Critical Zone (groundwater with long flow paths and water residence times) may play an important role in controlling chemical exports to rivers. Here, we combined two anthropogenic isotope tracers: uranium isotope ratios (234U/238U) and boron isotope ratios (δ11B), with the 87Sr/86Sr ratios to identify and quantify multiple solute (salinity) sources in the Rio Grande river in southern New Mexico and western Texas. The Rio Grande river is a major source of freshwater for irrigation and municipal uses in southwestern United States. There has been a large disagreement about the dominant salinity sources to the Rio Grande and particularly significant sources are of anthropogenic (agriculture practices and shallow groundwater flows, groundwater pumping, and urban developments) and/or geological (natural groundwater upwelling) origins. Between 2014 and 2016, we collected monthly river samples at 15 locations along a 200-km stretch of the Rio Grande river from Elephant Butte Reservoir, New Mexico to El Paso, Texas, as well as water samples from agricultural canals and drains, urban effluents and drains, and groundwater wells. Our study shows that due to the presence of localized and multiple salinity inputs, total dissolved solids (TDS) and isotope ratios of U, B, and Sr in the Rio Grande river show high spatial and temporal variability. Several agricultural, urban, and geological sources of salinity in the Rio Grande watershed have characteristic and distinguishable U, Sr, and B isotope signatures. However, due to the common issue of overlapping signatures as identified by previous tracer studies (such as δ18O, δD, δ34S), no single isotope tracer of U, Sr, or B isotopes was powerful enough to distinguish multiple salinity sources. Here, combining the multiple U, Sr, and B isotope and elemental signatures, we applied a multi-tracer mass balance approach to quantify the relative contributions of water mass from the identified various salinity end members along the 200-km stretch of the Rio Grande during different river flow seasons. Our results show that during irrigation (high river flow) seasons, the Rio Grande had uniform chemical and isotopic compositions, similar to the Elephant Butte reservoir where water is stored and well-mixed, reflecting the dominant contribution from shallow Critical Zone in headwater regions in temperate southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. In non-irrigation (low flow) seasons when the river water is stored at Elephant Butte reservoir, the Rio Grande river at many downstream locations showed heterogeneous chemical and isotopic compositions, reflecting variable inputs from upwelling of groundwater (deeper CZ), displacement of shallow groundwater, agricultural return flows, and urban effluents. Our study highlights the needs of using multi-tracer approach to investigate multiple solutes and salinity sources in rivers with complex geology and human impacts.

scholarly journals Phytophthora Species in Rivers and Streams of the Southwestern United States

2016 ◽  
Vol 82 (15) ◽  
pp. 4696-4704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rio A. Stamler ◽  
Soumalia Sanogo ◽  
Natalie P. Goldberg ◽  
Jennifer J. Randall
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Plant Pathogens ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
Phytophthora Species ◽  
Southwestern United States ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Rivers And Streams ◽  
San Juan River ◽  
Rio Grande River ◽  
Prevalent Species

ABSTRACTPhytophthoraspecies were isolated from rivers and streams in the southwestern United States by leaf baiting and identified by sequence analysis of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) ribosomal DNA (rDNA). The major waterways examined included the Rio Grande River, Gila River, Colorado River, and San Juan River. The most prevalent species identified in rivers and streams werePhytophthora lacustrisandP. riparia, both members ofPhytophthoraITS clade 6.P. gonapodyides,P. cinnamomi, and an uncharacterizedPhytophthoraspecies in clade 9 were also recovered. In addition, six isolates recovered from the Rio Grande River were shown to be hybrids ofP. lacustris×P. riparia. Pathogenicity assays usingP. ripariaandP. lacustrisfailed to produce any disease symptoms on commonly grown crops in the southwestern United States. Inoculation ofCapsicum annuumwithP. ripariawas shown to inhibit disease symptom development when subsequently challenged withP. capsici, a pathogenicPhytophthoraspecies.IMPORTANCEManyPhytophthoraspecies are significant plant pathogens causing disease on a large variety of crops worldwide. Closer examinations of streams, rivers, and forest soils have also identified numerousPhytophthoraspecies that do not appear to be phytopathogens and likely act as early saprophytes in aquatic and saturated environments. To date, thePhytophthoraspecies composition in rivers and streams of the southwestern United States has not been evaluated. This article details a study to determine the identity and prevalence ofPhytophthoraspecies in rivers and streams located in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and Texas. Isolated species were evaluated for pathogenicity on crop plants and for their potential to act as biological control agents.

Spanish Fur Trade from New Mexico, 1540-1821

1967 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-136
Author(s):  
David J. Weber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Fur Trade ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
Southwestern United States ◽  
Fort Vancouver ◽  
Anglo American

When the Mountain Men began their invasion of the Rockies n the 1820's, the tiny village of Taos, in New Mexico, took its place alongside Fort Vancouver and St. Louis as one of their three favorite “jumping-off points” in the search for beaver pelts. Spanish exploration of the area that now comprises the Southwestern United States had antedated that of the Anglo-American by over 250 years, but it was not until the arrival of the latter group that large-scale fur trapping took place. In the mountains and high plateaus of Colorado and New Mexico and in the beaver-rich valleys and tributaries of the Arkansas, Rio Grande, Green, Colorado, Gila, Sacramento and San Joaquin, the Anglo extracted great wealth where the Spaniard had seen only an unpromising wilderness. Although the Spaniard carried on a lively trade in deerskins and buffalo hides in the Southwest, there is little evidence of a significant trade in fine furs during the period of 1540 to 1821.

GEOMORPHIC AND INCISION HISTORY OF THE NORTHERN RIO GRANDE RIVER GORGE NEAR QUESTA, NEW MEXICO

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis W. Clow ◽  
◽  
Whitney M. Behr ◽  
Mark Helper ◽  
Peter Gold ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
History Of ◽  
Rio Grande River ◽  
Northern Rio Grande

Traditional Aesthetics

2020 ◽  
pp. 65-75
Author(s):  
Julianne Newmark
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
The Body ◽  
Southwestern United States ◽  
Community History ◽  
As If

D. H. Lawrence’s essays ‘The Spinner and the Monks’ of 1913 and ‘The Hopi Snake Dance’ of 1924 offer evocative textual considerations of aesthetic mediation through acts of the body. In these essays, readers can understand ‘traditional’ aesthetic acts to be those that are not contrivances of modernity; through such acts, history is invoked in the now, as if unchanged. This chapter identifies Lawrence’s engagements with traditional aesthetics as unique experiences of the human sensorium. The examples this chapter examines – the first from Lawrence’s earliest trip outside England (Italy), and the second from New Mexico (in the Southwestern United States) – show how Lawrence progressively experienced and then wrote about ‘traditional’ aesthetic acts as having a unique capacity to engage with community, history and truth. They thus have broad implications concerning Lawrence’s movement toward a refined articulation of aesthetic difference and viscerally mediated relationships. Lawrence’s accounts of Hopi dance and Italian handiwork reveal an openness to the viscerally-mediating capacity of aesthetic experience. As a result of his multi-sensorial engagements, Lawrence experiences and textually records ‘traditional’ aesthetic performances or outputs as both meditating and transformational.

A colorful new species of the digger wasp genus Pseudoplisus Ashmead from the Southwestern United States (Hymenoptera: Apoidea, Crabronidae)

Zootaxa ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-34
Author(s):  
MICHAEL OHL
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Species ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
Geographic Distribution ◽  
Color Pattern ◽  
Single Specimen ◽  
Southwestern United States ◽  
Digger Wasp ◽  
A New Species

A new species of apoid wasps, Pseudoplisus willcoxi sp. nov., is described from Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. It is compared with all other species currently assigned to the genus. It has a remarkable overall color pattern, unique in Pseudoplisus, and a restricted collecting record: only a single specimen was collected outside of the Willcox area in Arizona (defined here as including the Animas area, New Mexico). Additionally, of the 34 remaining specimens, one was collected in 1974 and all other after 2001. In the present paper, the new species is diagnosed, described, and the relevant characters are illustrated. The geographic distribution and its heterogeneous collecting record are briefly discussed.

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