Floodplain construction of the Rio Grande at El Paso, Texas, USA: response to Holocene climate change

► Late Holocene wet climate produced floodplain sequence of overbank silt and clay. ► Cumulic Mollisol named Socorro paleosol formed 2500-1000 years BP. ► Change to dry climate 1000 years BP ended floodplain deposition in Lower Valley. ► Late Holocene channel change occurred by the avulsion process of channel reoccupation. ► Late Pleistocene-early Holocene channel sand was source of sand to Bolson sand sheet.