New Mexico Geological Society Annual Spring Meeting — Abstracts

A geographic information system (GIS), in conjunction with remotely sensed imagery can be used to reconstruct late Quaternary and early Holocene paleohydrography. The relative ease and rapidity with which high-resolution, quantitative, and georeferenced data can be manipulated over a broad area makes the GIS method extremely useful. Our model uses three steps. First, drainage networks are interpolated from a digital elevation model (DEM), paleodrainage basins were interpolated from the modern elevations and inferred reconstructions of climate and dated Pleistocene-Early Holocene lake elevations. Second, precipitation and temperature maps were generated from modern topography and climate data. Maps of ancient temperatures and precipitation were generated by extrapolating temperature and climate using an elevation/precipitation correlation and from previous paleoclimate studies. Third, the runoff is inferred using a precipitation/runoff model. For this example, we borrowed the concept of an elevation/precipitation correlation used in the PRISM model (Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model of Daly et al., 1994). As an example, we created a paleohydrographic model of the Latest Pleistocene/Holocene pluvial lakes of the southeastern Basin and Range province, in New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico. Paleohydrographic databases can be used for many purposes, including the generation of paleo-topographic base maps, the estimation of drainage areas and volumes of individual water bodies and landforms, and the approximation of paleo-shoreline positions. GIS-based estimates of the location of surface water features and the dimensions of water bodies and associated landforms can be used to help constrain hydrological and climatic models of the late Quaternary and early Holocene.