Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
com
ScienceDirect
Russian Geology and Geophysics 56 (2015) 17491756
www.elsevier.com/locate/rgg
Abstract
The paper is concerned with geologic processes in river valleys, such as the movement of alluvial placers and mudflows, regarded as
viscous fluids. The dynamics of distribution of the placer mineral and mud-and-gravel material in a river valley was studied by modeling.
Moving material was examined as an independent flow of solid particles (solid flow), free of the enclosing rocks. The flowenvironment
interaction was specified by mass forces, friction forces, and substance sources (drains). For the mathematical description of a solid flow, a
set of viscous-liquid equations was used. The placer and mudflow parameters obtained during the numerical experiments agree satisfactorily
with the full-scale data for real objects.
2015, V.S. Sobolev IGM, Siberian Branch of the RAS. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: alluvial placer; icewaterrock flow; numerical simulation; viscous-liquid equations; Genaldon River
Introduction
During the geologic evolution of mountain topography,
complicated structural elements, such as river valleys, have
permanently experienced disequilibrium and equilibrium
states, with a change from one to the other. This change and
its rate and duration were controlled by exogenic and endogenic factors, not only local but also global and cosmic. The
intensity of erosion and denudation, as well as the presence
and quantity of water in different forms, played a decisive role
in the speed of rock transport along the river valley.
Two geologic bodies considerably different in their time
intervals are considered in the present paper: an icewater
rock flow and an alluvial gold placer deposit. Placers can form
for tens and hundreds of thousands of years; mudflows, for
minutes and hours. Numerical experiments with models for
objects of this type required initial geological and geocryological information. This condition was met by two objects: the
disastrous mudflow in the Genaldon river valley, North
Ossetia, and abandoned gold placer deposits in the Magadan
Region (Goncharov et al., 2002; Litvinenko, 2002; Mavlyudov, 2011).
Now only the northeastern regions of Russia continue to
yield 711 tons of placer gold annually (Gold, 2012). In 2013
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: agan@neisri.ru (A.A. Buiskikh)
1068-7971/$ - see front matter D 201 5, V.S. So bolev IGM, Siberian Branch of the RAS. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rgg.2015.11.007
1750
+ F,
x x
x
t
(1)
F = wg sin ,
(u)
= D
+ S + G,
t x x
x
(2)
1751
Fig. 1. Fragment of the bottom of a river valley. a, Alluvial placer; b, placer with
no enclosing rocks. 1, alluvium; 2, placer. , inclination of the valley bottom.
(3)
1752
Fig. 2. Position of the solid-flow wave depending on the environment properties. 14, viscosity = 800 Pas; inclination of the bottom is 5, 8, 12, and 20,
respectively; 5, = 2000 Pas, inclination of 5.
Placer dynamics
Active endogenic ore genesis in northeastern Russia took
place in the late JurassicCretaceous (Goldfarb, 2009; Shilo,
2000). Dike, quartz-vein, veinlet, and stockwork deposits
served as the main primary sources of prolific placer deposits,
the most prolific of which are PleistoceneHolocene alluvial
deposits.
The placer deposit of the Pavlik Creek is localized in the
central Magadan Region. The Pavlik Creek is a right tributary
of the Omchak River. The deposit belongs to the Omchak
oreplacer cluster on the OkhotskKolyma Upland (Goncharov et al., 2002; Litvinenko, 2002). This is a ~2.3 km long
valley placer, which passes into the ~0.8 km long placer of
the Krutoi Creek in its upper part. The bottom of the valleys
of both creeks is filled with a thick layer of alluvium: 30 m
in the canyon part of the valley, 29 m in the upper reaches
of the ancient floodplain, and 35 m in the lower reaches. The
floodplain sediments are assigned to the Middle Pleistocene.
The sediments include pebble gravel, sandclay loam, rubble,
and clay underlain by fractured shales and sandy shales. The
sand thickness reached 1.02.7 m in the upper part of the
deposit and 1.93.5 m in the lower one. The maximum gold
content in some parts of the placer (0.204 kg/m3), varying
from 0.001 to 0.018 kg/m3 for different placer streams.
1753
Fig. 3. Distribution of linear gold reserves in the placer of the Pavlik deposit. a, Comparison between natural data (1 (Litvinenko, 2002)) and results of numerical
modeling (2); b, gold distribution along the river valley at 20 (1) and 100 (2) ka; a, b, 3, distribution of primary gold sources along the valley in accordance with their
extent.
Mudflow modeling
The icerock slide which surged through the Genaldon
valley in 2002 had the following parameters: The zone of the
flow transit from Kolka Glacier to Karmadon Gorge was
~14 103 m in length; the flow width, 400500 m; and the
wave height, 100150 m (Petrakov et al., 2013; Popovnin et
al., 2003). The volume of the ice body which filled the
Genaldon valley in the Karmadon depression is estimated at
115 million m3. The minimum and maximum possible velocities of the ice flow might have reached 37 and 80 m/s, and
the time of its movement with an average velocity of 60 m/s
was no more than 3 102 s. Remnants of the ice flow as a
waterrock slide (estimated volume of 35 million m3) passed
below the Karmadon Gorge. The wave height at the gorge
opening might have been 30 m, and the movement velocities
might have corresponded to the velocities of ordinary mudflows.
The following values of parameters were used as the initial
data for the mudflow model: for the upper part of the valley
from Kolka Glacier to Karmadon Gorge, = 8 102 Pas;
D = 105 m2/s; no sources or drains distributed along the
1754
Fig. 4. Position of the wave of an icewaterrock flow in the upper part of the
Genaldon valley (a) at the following moments (s): 1, 50; 2, 170; 3, 260; and that
of the mud-and-gravel flow in the lower part of the valley (b) at the following
moments (s): 1, 166; 2, 350; 3, 520; 4, 690.
the propagation of the wave, its base widens and its height
decreases owing to diffusion.
The icewaterrock flow traveled for 14 km to the Karmadon Gorge within 260 s. The final position of the flow is
shown by wave 3 (Fig. 4a). The parameters of the model
ensured the ~32 m height of the wave of the mudflow which
gushed below the gorge (Fig. 4a; this corresponds to the right
edge of wave 3), which almost coincided with the published
estimates (Popovnin et al., 2003). In the upper part of the
valley, the losses of substance by the flow were insignificant,
as evidenced by photos of the valley bottom (Popovnin et al.,
2003). The same is suggested by the shape of the curves in
Fig. 4a: The wave height did not change much. In the lower
part of the valley, the character of the flow changed considerably: Moving more slowly, the weakened flow lost most of
the material. The wave height decreased from 30 to 1 m in
the area of its propagation, 10 km in length (Fig. 4b).
Afterward the mudflow proceeded as a suspended flood
(Popovnin et al., 2003). It follows from the calculations that
the mudflow traveled 17 km of its path between Karmadon
Gorge and Gizel Village within 690 s.
The mudflow velocities in different parts of the valley are
shown in Fig. 5. At the initial moment, a velocity of 40 m/s
was accepted at the left boundary of the upper part of the
valley. For 50 s of the action of the source at the input, it
increased to 45 m/s. As the flow approached the gorge, its
velocity changed from 60 to 65 m/s. In the lower part of the
valley, the wave velocity changed from 13 to 22 m/s within
the first 166 s. After that its maximum values changed from
22 to 26 m/s. The calculated wave velocities coincided with
the estimates in (Bozhinskii et al., 2002; Popovnin et al., 2003)
for the upper part of the valley. For its lower part, they are
Conclusions
Placer transport along the bottom of a valley is a typical
process of substance transport under the effect of gravity and
water flow. For example, a water flow and transported
sediments can move with velocities of 15 m/s, passing part
of their energy to gold particles. Gold particles move in jumps
and remain at their places for a long time. The entire placer
flow has an average velocity of ~108 m/s. Thus, studies of
placer dynamics require that two processes with substantially
different physical parameters be considered in combination:
rapid (by geological standards) transport of bottom sediments
References
Bilibin, Yu.A., 1955. Fundamentals of Placer Geology [in Russian]. Izd. AN
SSSR, Moscow.
Bozhinskii, A.N., Nazarov, A.N., Sapunov, V.N., 2002. Statistical modeling
of the dynamics of slushflows. Vestnik Mosk. Gos. Univ., Ser. 5,
Geografiya, No. 5, 3943.
Bulgakov, V.S., 1984. On the theoretical model for formation of alluvial gold
placers, in: Problems of Continental Placer Formation (Proc. VI All-Union
Conf. on Placer Geology) [in Russian]. Izd. DVNTs AN SSSR, Vladivostok, pp. 1824.
Chalov, R.S. (Ed.), 2001. Soil Erosion and Riverbed Evolution [in Russian].
Izd. Mosk. Gos. Univ., Moscow, Issue 13.
Chalov, R.S., Golosov, V.N., Sidorchuk, A.Yu., 2008. Makkaveevs theory
of a single erosionaccumulation process and theory of erosionriverbed
systems. Geomorfologiya, No. 3, 614.
1755
1756
Shilo, N.A., 2000. Bases of the Study about the Placer [in Russian]. Nauka,
Moscow.
Shkadov, V.Ya., 1967. Wave modes of flow of a thin layer of viscous fluid.
Izv. AN SSSR. Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 1, 4351.
Simonov, Yu.G., Simonova, T.Yu., 2014. The river basins: their place and
function in the system of the processes of biosphere, in: Ecological and
Geographical Studies in the River Basins. Materials of the Fourth
All-Russian Practical-Scientific Conf. Voronezh. Pedagog. Univers. Voronezh, pp. 2131.
Smirnov, V.N., 2012. The Verkhoyansk-Chukchi area of the recent orogeny:
zoning and the main formation stages. Russian Geology and Geophysics
(Geologiya i Geofizika) 53 (5), 467474 (610620).
Sorokhtin, O.G., Ushakov, S.A., 2002. The Earths Evolution [in Russian].
Izd. Mosk. Gos. Univ., Moscow.
Takabaev, M.K., 1996. Numerical Simulation of a Mudflow. Extended
Abstract Doctoral (Phys.Math.) Dissertation. Kazakh National Univ.,
Almaty.