ABSTRACT: Piping in the Milk River Canyon, southeastern Alberta - a contemporary dryland geomorphic process

CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Abstract

During the spring and summer of 1975 and 1976, the authors observed and recorded piping phenomena as it affects slope development in the Milk River Canyon area of semiarid southeastern Alberta. This little-studied and seldom-described geomorphological process was illustrated amply and occurs on a scale not previously described in Canada or elsewhere. Piping is responsible for a sequence of landscape forms which, together, cause canyon wal retreat. A small dam built at the outlet of a representative pipe network provided a rought estimate of 286 tons of sediment per sq km of canyon wall in the one field season. Factors favorable to piping occur in the Milk River Canyon area. They are: (1) the presence of swelling clays, especially bentonite (a devitrified volcanic ash); (2) the abundance of fine-grained sediments; (3) the presence of soft unconsolidated bedrock as well as alluvium; (4) large zones of porous material alternated with impermeable members; (5) long, hot dry spells with episodic intense precipitation; (6) active badland serosion; (7) incised gullies and a degrading river; (8) sparse vegetation; (9) high local relief producing a steep hydraulic gradient; and (10) the presence of seasonally large hydraulic heads provided by the sloughs on the prairie surface above the canyon walls and by the thick porous sandstones which rest on an impermeable clayey carbonaceous shale and lignite

Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology