The push and pull of abandoned channels: How floodplain processes and healing affect avulsion dynamics and alluvial landscape evolution in foreland basins

River avulsions are an important mechanism by which sediment is routed and emplaced in foreland basins. However, because avulsions occur infrequently, we lack observational data that might inform where, when, and why avulsions occur and these questions are instead often investigated by rule-based numerical models. These models have historically simplified or neglected the effects of abandoned channels on avulsion dynamics, even though fluvial megafans in foreland basins are characteristically covered in abandoned channels. Here, we investigate the pervasiveness of abandoned channels on modern fluvial megafan surfaces. Then, we present a physically based cellular model that parameterizes interactions between a single avulsing river and abandoned channels in a foreland basin setting. We investigate how abandoned channels affect avulsion set-up, pathfinding, and landscape evolution. We demonstrate and discuss how the processes of abandoned channel inheritance and transient knickpoint propagation post-avulsion serve to shortcut the time necessary to set-up successive avulsions. Then, we address the idea that abandoned channels can both repel and attract future pathfinding flows under different conditions. By measuring the distance between the mountain-front and each avulsion over long (106 to 107 years) timescales, we show that increasing abandoned channel repulsion serves to push avulsions farther from the mountain-front, while increasing attraction pulls avulsions proximally. Abandoned channels do not persist forever, and we test possible channel healing scenarios (deposition-only, erosion-only, and far-field directed) and show that only the final scenario achieves dynamic equilibrium without completely filling accommodation space. We also observe megafan growth occurring via ~O:105 year lobe switching, but only in our runs that employ deposition-only or erosion-only healing modes. Finally, we highlight opportunities for future field work and remote sensing efforts to inform our understanding of the role that floodplain topography, including abandoned channels, plays on avulsion dynamics.

Experimental evidence for bifurcation angles control on abandoned channel fill geometry

The nature of abandoned channels' sedimentary fills has a significant influence on the development and evolution of floodplains and ultimately on fluvial reservoir geometry. A control of bifurcation geometry (i.e., bifurcation angle) on channel abandonment dynamics and resulting channel fills, such as sand plugs, has been intuited many times but never quantified. In this study, we present a series of experiments focusing on bedload transport designed to test the conditions for channel abandonment by modifying the bifurcation angle between channels, the flow incidence angles and the differential channel bottom slopes. We find that disconnection is possible in the case of asymmetrical bifurcations with high diversion angle (≥30∘) and quantify for the first time an inverse relationship between diversion angle and sand plug length and volume. The resulting sand plug formation is initiated in the flow separation zone at the external bank of the mouth of the diverted channel. Sedimentation in this zone induces a feedback loop leading to sand plug growth, discharge decrease and eventually to channel disconnection. Finally, the formation processes and final complex architecture of sand plugs are described, allowing for a better understanding of their geometry. Although our setup lacks some of the complexity of natural rivers, our results seem to apply at larger scales. Taken into account, these new data will improve fluvial (reservoir) models by incorporating more realistic topography and grain size description in abandoned channels.

Experimental evidences for bifurcation angles control on abandoned channel fill geometry

The nature of abandoned channels sedimentary fills has a significant influence on the development and evolution of floodplains and ultimately on fluvial reservoir geometry. A control of bifurcation geometry (i.e., bifurcation angle) on channel abandonment dynamics and resulting channel fills, such as sandplug, has been intuited many times but never quantified. In this study we present a series of experiments focusing on bedload transport designed to test the conditions for channel abandonment by modifying the bifurcation angle between channels, the flow incidence angles and the differential channel bottom slopes. We find that disconnection is possible in the case of asymmetrical bifurcations with high diversion angle (≥ 30°) and quantify for the first time a relationship between diversion angle and sandplug length and volume. The resulting sandplug formation is initiated in the flow separation zone at the external bank of the mouth of the diverted channel. Sedimentation in this zone initiates a feedback loop leading to sandplug growth, discharge decrease and eventually to channel disconnection. Finally, the formation processes and final complex architecture of sandplugs are described, allowing for a better understanding of their geometry. Although our setup lacks the complexity of natural rivers, our results seem to apply at larger scales. Taken into account, these new data will improve the realism of fluvial models.

Analyzing the architecture of point bar of meandering fluvial river using ground penetration radar: A case study from Hulun Lake Depression, China

The point bar is one of the most important reservoirs in a meandering depositional system, and accurately building a 3D architecture model for point bars is crucial to predict hydrocarbon distribution within the reservoir. Unfortunately, we can only obtain a qualitative description about the internal architecture of the point bar due to the limited information or the low resolution of available data (such as reflection seismic data). To build a 3D prototype point bar reservoir model, we analyze the architecture of point bars by integrating high-resolution ground penetrating radar (GPR) data and modern deposition. We found that our GPR data have five main reflection patterns (GPR facies), and GPR facies can be used to relate with architectural elements (the depositional facies and geobodies within depositional facies). The concave-down GPR facies is usually related to the abandoned channel. The continuous, subhorizontal, subparallel GPR facies is commonly related with lateral-accretion sand bodies within the point bar. The multiple stacked small-scale, discontinuous reflections GPR facies is interpreted to be shale drapes within the point bar. We further analyzed the geometry parameters of the identified channels. We found that the nonsymmetric [Formula: see text] of abandoned channel near the channel axis is related to the ratio between the curvature of channel radius [Formula: see text] and channel width [Formula: see text] ([Formula: see text]). Finally, we built two 3D channel reservoir models and our models could provide useful guidance for the architecture analysis of buried meandering fluvial reservoirs.