CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Gill, T.E.; Vet, R.J.; Biscaye, R.J.; Bleiweiss, M.P.; and Shaw, M.
Date : 2006.
Title : Recurrent transcontinental dust transport from southwestern North America to Canada.
Publication : Sixth International Conference on Aeolian Research. July 24-28 2006, University of Gueph, Guleph, Ontario, Canada. Program and Abstracts. Edited by: W.G. Nickling, S. Turner, J.A. Gilles and M. Puddister.
Issue :
Page(s) : 150.
Abstract
We demonstrate that mineral dust emitted from sources in Texas, New Mexico (USA) and Chihuahua (Mexico) is regularly transported in detectable amounts to northeastern North America (Canada). On 6 April 2001, an intensifying cyclone over southwestern North America caused a large regional dust outbreak. Precipitation samples collected subsequently in Ontario and Quebec, Canada and Pennsylvania, USA by the Canadian Air and Precipitation Monitoring Network (CAPMoN) contained exceptional amounts of dust. The storm and collected samples were evaluated by meteorological back- and forward-trajectory analyses, remote sensing imagery, x-ray diffraction, elemental, chemical and isotopic (Sr, Nd) analyses, some of which were compared with dust samples from the source regions. All results confirmed mineral aerosol emission from the Southwest USA and Mexico followed by transcontinental transport and wet deposition in Canada and the northeast USA. Numerous subsequent events during winter and early spring (as recently as March 2006) have matched this pattern, viz., dust generated by strong winds associated with deepening low-pressure areas over the Southwest is lofted into the circulation of a northeast moving cyclone, and washed out up to ~3000 km northeast of its source. Trajectories and chemical data attribute variations in dustfall composition at different wet deposition measurement sites were matched to different source subregions (USA vs. Mexico) and different transport paths. These intra-North American dusts are mineralogically and isotopically distinguishable from mineral aerosols that often arrive in North America from Asia during spring, often at approximately the same time.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology