Avulsion processes at the terminus of low-gradient semi-arid fluvial systems: Lessons from the Río Colorado, Altiplano endorheic basin, Bolivia

The Río Colorado dryland river system in the southeast of the endorheic Altiplano Basin (Bolivia) terminates on a very flat coastal plain at the edge of the Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt pan with an area of ca. 12,500 km2. Since the Pleistocene the basin has experienced several lake expansion and contraction cycles in response to wetter and drier climate periods, respectively. At present the basin is in a dry climate period which results in a lake level lowstand and progradation of fluvial systems such as the Río Colorado onto the former lake bottom. The present field study of the terminus of the Río Colorado shows that the river experiences a gradual downstream decrease of bankfull width and depth. This bankfull decrease is caused by the combined effects of: (1) extremely low gradient of the lake bottom and, hence, loss of flow energy, and (2) downstream transmission losses due to high evaporation potential and river water percolation through the channel floor. Peak water discharge in seasonal, short-duration rain periods causes massive overbank flooding and floodplain inundation. On satellite images the morphology of the river terminus has a divergent pattern and resembles a network of coeval sinuous distributary channels. However, field observations show that only one channel is active at low flow stage, and at high-flow stage an abandoned, partially infilled channel may be active as well. The active channel at its termination splits into narrow and shallow anastomosing streams before its demise on the lacustrine coastal plain. The rest of the channels which form the divergent network are older sediment-filled abandoned sinuous river courses with multiple random avulsion points. These channel deposits, together with extensive amalgamated crevasse-splay deposits, form an intricate network of fluvial sand deposits. Successive stages of progressively deeper crevasse-channel incision into the floodplain are the result of waning-stage return flow of floodwaters towards the main channel. This results in increased crevasse-channel width, depth and length, and redeposition of eroded lacustrine coastal-plain sediment at the junction of the crevasse channel with the present-day river. A sedimentary model is proposed in which deep river bank incision by return flow in crevasse-channels creates the preferential locus for river avulsion. In a Lowstand Systems Tract with little vertical accommodation increase, the recurring avulsed-river paths result in a thin but laterally extensive network of amalgamated channel-fill, point-bar, crevasse-channel and crevasse-splay deposits. The resulting sedimentary architecture could easily be mistaken as produced by a distributary system of simultaneously active fluvial channels.