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Keywords:
Badlands
Weathering
Lithological properties
Clay mineralogy
Smectite
Hillslope processes
i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Comprehensive and important work has been done in understanding badland processes on both the big
scale, and more recently on smaller scale in order to understand the subtle differences between sites.
However, most studies lack important information regarding clay mineralogy and their importance for
weathering pro- cesses. Type and rate of weathering depend on material physico-chemical properties,
climatic regimes and slope characteristics. As weathering progresses, the surface conditions change,
inuencing erosion processes. Usually badland lithologies are reported as sodium-rich, highly dispersive
materials but that is not invariably true. The primary objective of this study is to show that clay minerals
have an important role in dening sur- face and subsurface processes on badland hillslopes.
Field studies conducted in Dinosaur Park badlands, Alberta, Canada, Chinguacousy badlands, Ontario, Canada
and Sestino badlands, Tuscany, Italy, have shown that there are two dominant clay-rich lithologies:
smectite-rich and smectite-poor mudrocks. Different surface crust and weathering proles were observed
on smectite-rich mudrocks during two eld years with distinct precipitation inputs. After a dry fall-winter
season, the popcorn surface was very well developed (~ 23 cm). The subsurface layer, 1015 cm thick,
overlaid the layer of smaller shards, followed by the unweathered material. After a very wet fall-winter season the surface layer was denser and thinner (~ 0.5 cm), with wider cracks and a thin subsurface layer attached to the crust. Weathering proles on smectite-poor lithologies did not show any differences with
variable climatic conditions. A thin surface layer was composed of soft, thin and small (0.5 0.3 0.1 cm)
shards. A layer of larger shards, overlying unweathered material was beneath it.
In order to better understand the described occurrences badland materials were monitored in controlled laboratory conditions during an incremental weathering experiment. Six samples of each material were
subjected to 10 cycles of simulated rainfall which duration ranged 1060 min. Very short rainfalls
(1020 min) can cause swelling of clay minerals in smectite-rich materials and formation of popcorn
sur- face during drying periods. During subsequent wetting-drying periods, the crust becomes atter and
denser, and desiccation cracks become wider and deeper. Samples subjected to 50 and 60 min of rainfall
showed maximum swelling after only one cycle of rainfall. After this swift swelling, samples became unstable
and dis- persive. During subsequent wetting, dispersion became dominant, resulting in atter surfaces,
thinner crust and narrower desiccation cracks.
Smectite-poor mudrocks appeared to be resistant to variable wetting and drying. Large shards broke down
into smaller due to differential swelling of illite and chlorite. Once they were reduced to tiny, aky shards
the surface became compacted. The surface cracks served as the initial pathways for sediment and water
movement.
Knowing if the material is smectite-rich or smectite-poor can help in prediction of processes and the erosion
rates. The amount, intensity and duration of precipitation will determine not only the rate of weathering but
also the type of the weathered surface on smectite-rich surfaces. Smectite-poor materials appear to be more
resistant to change in precipitation.
2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
A complex combination of physico-chemical properties of the material and climatic conditions determine the type and amount of
weathering and subsequent crust formation. Different materials respond differently in the same environments, but also the same materials can respond in different ways to the same processes in different
environments. Usually more than one process is active at one site and
M. M.
Kasanin-Grubin
Kasanin-Grubin
/ Catena
/ Catena
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(2013)
(2013)
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M. M.
Kasanin-Grubin
Kasanin-Grubin
/ Catena
/ Catena
106106
(2013)
(2013)
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laboratory conditions. It is essential to achieve conditions in the laboratory which reproduce eld conditions as closely as possible. So far
only a few weathering experiments have been conducted using badland materials. However, they have not fully represented natural conditions, and did not observe changes in detail. In addition, clay
minerals have not been identied in detail, and link to processes
has not been established.
Furthermore, material response to seasonal changes is reported to
be an important factor in erosion processes over time. Therefore it is
essential to study in detail how materials behave in different climatic
conditions. Natural systems have many variables acting at the same
time, mainly due to climate (amount and type of precipitation, prevailing winds, etc.) and slope characteristics. In order to minimize
the number of variables it is essential to study progressive
weathering of fresh material in controlled laboratory conditions.
Therefore, the primary objective of this paper is to show the
important role of clay minerals, both their content and mineralogical
composition, in den- ing surface and subsurface processes on
badland hillslopes.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Field sites
Three badland sites were selected in order to assure variety of
mudrock with different content and type of clay minerals: Dinosaur
Park badlands, Canada, Sestino badlands, Italy and Chinguacousy badlands, Canada. The average annual precipitation in the Dinosaur Provincial Park is 350 mm (75% of rain and 25% of snow). Typically two
main types of storms occur in the badland area: the low intensity
rainfalls that can occur throughout the year and the high intensity
rainstorms mostly during July and August (Bryan and Campbell,
1986).
Badland formation started after deglaciation about 15,000 years BP
when Red Deer River started incision into clastic sediments
(Campbell,
Fig. 1. a) Alberta badlands, Canada, b) Sestino badlands, Italy, c) Chinguacousy badlands, Canada.
badland lithologies, shales. As indicated above, the most typical varieties of mudrocks are yellow, brown and grey, while varieties of
shales are red, dark grey and light grey. All mudrocks and both the
dark grey and red shales have similar chemical composition which
is in accordance with their mineralogical composition (Table 2). The
light grey shale has a high Ca content indicating abundant calcite.
Three lithological units were distinguished as smectite-poor:
Sestino badland marly shale, and Chinguacousy badland dark red and
light red shales (Table 1). Besides illite and chlorite, marly shale
contains calcite, while dark and light red shales contain quartz.
Chemical composition of dark and light red is also identical (Table 2).
Marly shale has signi- cantly higher Ca content indicating abundant
presence of calcite.
2.3. Weathering proles
2.3.1. Sandstone
A thin weathering rind that develops on the sandstone surface
after drying was observed and described in previous studies (e.g.
Bowyer- Bower and Bryan, 1986; Bryan et al., 1984; Hodges and
Bryan, 1982). It can form on the sandstone surface in one storm
(Bowyer-Bower and Bryan, 1986) and beneath it, the sandstone is
unweathered. On the sandstone surface rainfall also
leaves
splash pits, which are destroyed during the next rainfall (Hodges,
1982).
The thickness of the weathering rind depends mainly on the
textural characteristics of the material. On the laminated clayey
siltstone the rind is 24 mm thick, and only on this material could the
35 mm thick sub- surface layer be differentiated from the underlying
unweathered sand- stone. On clayey sandstone and coarse sandstone
the weathering rind is thinner (b 2 mm) and no subsurface layer can
be differentiated. The weathering rind gets deeper (57 mm) along
joints because when water inltrates cracks to the subsurface area it
does not evaporate as quickly as from the surface and the weathering
process penetrates the material.
2.3.2. Smectite-rich lithologies
Typical weathering proles, as developed on mudrock in the Dinosaur Badlands Park, Alberta (Hodges and Bryan, 1982), marls from the
Guadix Basin badlands, Spain (Gerits et al., 1987), mudrocks from the
Chadron Formation, Utah (Howard, 1994a) and mudrocks from the
Zin Valley badlands, Israel (Yair et al., 1980) have the following
layers: a) 12 cm thick porous crust with desiccation cracks that is
leached of highly soluble components; b) ~ 10 cm subsurface
compact layer rich in micropores; c) 1040 cm thick transitional
layer, with partly weathered shards and d) unweathered material.
A typical weathering prole on mudrock surfaces consists of 4
basic layers: crust, subsurface layer, layer of thin small shards and
unweathered layer (Gerits et al., 1987). Swelling and shrinking of
smectite-rich material usually develops a specic surface colloquially
called popcorn. This type of surface causes great variations in surface microrelief and antecedent moisture conditions (De Boer and
Campbell, 1990). Depending on the rainfall intensities popcorn
sur- face crust can develop on the unweathered material after two
rain- falls (Bowyer-Bower and Bryan, 1986). It is loose and porous
and the aggregates are resistant to splash detachment at the
beginning of the rainfall (Bryan et al., 1984).
Table 1
Main lithological units in the badland areas and clay mineral content.
Lithology
Area
Clay
content (%)
Sandstone
Dinosaur Park
badlands
24
Dominant clay
minerals
Smectite,
kaolinite
Smectite-rich
lithologies
Smectite-poor
lithologies
Mudrock (yellow,
brown, grey)
Varicolour shales
(red, dark-grey,
light-grey)
72
Sestino
badlands
Marly shale
Dark red shale
Light red shale
Chinguacousy
badlands
63
Smectite, illite,
kaolinite
Smectite, illite,
kaolinite
65
Illite, chlorite
68
58
Illite, chlorite
Illite, chlorite
Table 2
Chemical composition of unweathered materials (%).
Lithological type
Fe
Ca
Si
Al
Mg
Na
Sandstone
Smectite-rich lithologies
1.20
3.14
3.45
4.27
5.59
5.80
3.61
5.68
5.25
2.10
9.16
0.36
0.19
0.34
0.49
0.12
20.73
5.14
5.47
24.25
1.42
2.04
2.45
2.34
2.99
3.07
0.93
4.20
4.16
1.05
24.40
30.00
30.94
28.59
29.78
29.44
17.84
24.92
24.57
13.67
5.33
8.34
8.88
8.90
10.77
10.43
5.62
8.06
8.13
3.38
0.74
1.16
1.08
1.00
1.70
1.66
1.20
2.50
2.44
1.10
0.94
1.28
1.02
1.22
0.77
0.68
0.79
0.08
0.10
0.08
Smectite-poor lithologies
Yellow mudrock
Grey mudrock
Brown mudrock
Red shale
Dark grey shale
Light grey shale
Dark red shale
Light red shale
Marly clay
due to ice crystal growth and clay swelling can induce stronger
alteration of mudrock than caused with wetting and drying (Pardini
et al., 1995). Regues et al. (1995) indicate that the sequence of
seasonal processes is strongly
effecting
characteristics
and
appearance of regolith and Pardini et al. (1996) emphasis that the
frost-defrost action is most de- structive process for materials
containing swelling clays.
When the same sites were examined after a very wet winter
and spring the surface layer was denser and thinner (~ 0.5 cm), more
com- pact and with wider cracks. The weathering proles also
differed with the type of mudrock (Fig. 3). The surface crust on
mudrocks was thin, averaging 0.5 cm in depth. A thin subsurface
layer attached to the crust which was 4 cm thick. Underlying was
the 4 cm thick ne shard layer, overlying the unweathered material.
This uniform, dense, com- pact crust covered most of the surface
homogeneously (Fig. 3).
2.3.3. Smectite-poor lithologies
The weathering proles on three materials differ in thickness of
layers. Marly shale has the thinnest surface layer composed of soft,
thin and small (0.5 0.3 0.1 cm) shards. Beneath is the layer of larger shards, followed by unweathered material. The weathering
proles of the dark red and light red shale are similar in appearance
but differ in the thickness of the layers. The surface layer on dark
red shale is about 2 cm, while on the light red only 1 cm. The
subsurface on the dark red shale is ~ 10 cm thick, and on the light
red it is only 2 cm.
2.4. Methodology
Even though the response of the material to precipitation has
been proven to be signicant, so far there have been only few
studies that monitored weathering processes of badland materials in
controlled lab- oratory conditions. It is essential to achieve conditions
in the laboratory which reproduce eld conditions as closely as
possible. Unweathered material should be as intact as possible
during sampling. Pardini et al. (1995) developed a good sampling
technique by mechanically inserting aluminium boxes into the
regolith and in this way the original structure of the material was
preserved. However, this is not always possible be- cause badland
sediments are often fractured and break easily into shards.
Both Pardini et al. (1995) and Canton et al. (2001) wetted
samples with capillary movement by placing them in sand baths
saturated with water. With clay-rich materials it is hard to determine
the rate of water intake. In the experiment done by Pardini et al.
(1995) the wetting cycles lasted 3 days followed with air-drying for
12 days, while Canton et al. (2001) left samples in the sand bath until
the whole surface appeared wet and oven dried them at 40 C.
With the wetting from the bottom, leaching of elements and crust
development, which are essential for ero- sional processes, will not
evolve exactly as they do in the natural conditions. Torri and Bryan
(1997) used rainfall simulators in their ex- periment which provided
more realistic conditions. The storm intensity over 27 storms was
constant (50.4 mm h 1), however the duration in- creased from
initial 15 min to 120 min, while drying varied from 1.25 to 73 h (~
21.13 h). Although this experiment revealed the stages in
Fig. 2. Sandstone immersed in tap water for 2 days and oven-dried overnight.
Fig. 3. (a) Difference in the rill network and surface characteristics on the same site in 2001 (left) and 2003 (right). (b) Photos and SEM images of popcorn surface in 2001 (left)
and surface crust in 2003 (right) (Kasanin-Grubin and Bryan, 2007).
1
Fig. 4. Incremental weathering experiment for the smectite-rich lithologies. Samples subjected to cycles 1, 5 and 10 of 10 min long rainfall (intensity 45 mm h
).
Fig. 5. Incremental weathering experiment for the smectite-rich lithologies. Samples subjected to cycles 1, 5 and 10 of 60 min long rainfall (intensity 45 mm h
).
Fig. 6. Incremental weathering experiment for the smectite-poor lithologies. Samples subjected to cycles 1, 5 and 10 of 10 min long rainfall (intensity 45 mm h
).
Fig. 7. Incremental weathering experiment for the smectite-poor lithologies. Samples subjected to cycles 1, 5 and 10 of 60 min long rainfall (intensity 45 mm h
In smectite-rich materials subjected to 60 min rainfall the sediment concentration was highest at the beginning of cycles in all
samples and slowly decreased towards the tenth cycle (Fig. 9b).
There was no signicant difference between the sample intervals
because of the swift change from swelling to dispersion and the
clogging of pores. Higher smectite content prevented rapid sediment release. Grey mudrock showed sudden decrease in the 30
and the 60 min samples in sediment concentration in same cycles
during which a sudden increase in the volume occurred (cycles 3
and 8) (Figs. 8b, 9b). This conrms that higher volumes of water
passed through subsurface cracks, but that they were lled with sediment in the following cycle and cracks closed again. However, it
must be expected for this to happen again, once the sediment is
washed out.
Leachate specic conductance was higher in samples subjected to
10 min samples than for 60 min samples. Specic conductance also
showed distinct trends between 10 and 60 min samples (Fig. 10a
and b). In all 10 min smectite-rich lithologies, the specic conductance increased during rst three to four rainfalls and then remained
at an almost constant (Fig. 10a). This conrms that most solutes are
released when the fresh material is exposed to rainfall. With time,
surface and subsurface cracks form and act as important water and
sediment conduits. In 60 min samples initially high conductance decreased and remained almost constant in all smectite-rich samples.
In smectite-poor lithologies, leachate characteristics were substantially different from the smectite-rich lithologies. In the marly
shale and the dark red shale, volume rates increased from the 10 to
the 60 min samples (Fig. 8a and b). The light red shale was distinct
from other smectite-poor samples because the 10 and 20 min samples had higher volume rates than the other samples (Fig. 8a).
Sediment concentration and
specic conductance were
extremely low in all smectite-poor samples (Figs. 9a and b, 10a and
b). However, in marly shale volume and sediment concentration
suddenly decreased in certain cycles (cycles 5 and 8), then increased
again during the fol- lowing cycles (cycles 7 and 9), while the
specic conductance had the opposite pattern. This happened
during shard breakdown and when water used new pathows.
Sediment concentrations were also highest
).
4. Discussion
In each lithology, depending on its properties, a certain threshold
level of weathering is necessary to make the material vulnerable to
erosion processes. The type and rate of weathering depend on material physico-chemical properties, climatic regimes and slope characteristics. As weathering progresses, the surface conditions change,
inuencing erosional processes. The amount and type of clay minerals are critical for weathering processes in badland materials and
will determine whether chemical or physical weathering processes
are dominant.
ml min-1
20
15
10
5
0
C1
C2
C3
C4
C5
C6
C7
C8
C9
C10
cycle number
25
SR-yellow
SR-brown
SR-grey
SR-dark grey
SR-red
SR-light grey
SP-marly shale
SP-dark red
SP-light red
15
ml min-1
20
10
0
1
10
cycle muber
Fig. 8. Leachate volume during incremental weathering experiment. a) 10 min samples, b) 60 min samples (SR smectite-rich; SP smectite-poor).
g ml-1
25
20
15
10
5
0
10
cycle muber
20
g ml-1
25
15
SP-marly shale
SP-dark red
SP-light red
10
5
0
10
cycle muber
Fig. 9. Leachate sediment concentration during incremental weathering experiment. a) 10 min samples, b) 60 min samples (SR smectite-rich; SP smectite-poor).
uS cm-1
2000
SR-yellow
SR-brown
SR-grey
SR-dark grey
SR-red
SR-light grey
SP-marly shale
SP-dark red
SP-light red
1500
1000
500
10
cycle muber
2000
SR-yellow
SR-brown
SR-grey
SR-dark grey
SR-red
SR-light grey
SP-marly shale
SP-dark red
SP-light red
uS cm-1
1500
1000
500
10
cycle muber
Fig. 10. Leachate specic conductance during incremental weathering experiment. a) 10 min samples, b) 60 min samples (SR smectite-rich; SP smectite-poor).
During wetting these shales release a constant small amount of sediments, with regular decrease in specic conductance and leachate
volume over rainfalls.
This study has
shown that clay mineralogy is extremely
important for the behaviour of different materials. According to their
response to precipitation, type of weathering, erosional process and
rill network characteristics, badland lithologies can be grouped by
clay mineralogy: sandstones and siltstone that typically have ~ 20%
of clay minerals, smectite-rich mudrocks and shales, and shales that
do not have smec- tite as the dominant clay mineral. In previous
badland studies clay min- eralogy was very rarely tested in detail and
it is crucial information for understanding the processes active and
prediction of slope
evolution. Obtained results indicate that
determining the detail mineralogical composition of materials is
essential for understanding geomorphic processes and should not be
neglected in future studies.
So far physically-based models of soil erosion and
rill
development have not incorporated lithological characteristics in
an appropriate way. This study has proved that lithological
properties, particularly clay mineralogy, are of great importance for
hillslope processes. In this
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