16 posts · 37,887 views

I am an assistant professor at Virginia Tech specializing in sedimentary and marine geology.

Clastic Detritus
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September 18, 2011
11:16 AM
855 views

Listening to Rivers

by Brian Romans in Clastic Detritus

Rivers are the great conveyors of material across the Earth’s surface. Determining how much and at what rate material, both solid and dissolved, is moved from one place to another is critical for understanding how rivers interact with ecosystems. Importantly, predicting the timing and magnitude of floods that occur in the ecosystem known as human [...]... Read more »

Hsu, L., Finnegan, N., & Brodsky, E. (2011) A seismic signature of river bedload transport during storm events. Geophysical Research Letters, 38(13). DOI: 10.1029/2011GL047759

June 14, 2011
02:56 PM
983 views

Linking Erosional and Depositional Landscapes

by Brian Romans in Clastic Detritus

The surface of Earth is being reshaped constantly. Mountainous uplands are broken down by water and wind producing sediment that is moved by rivers to lowlands. Some of this sediment is deposited along the way, some is delivered to the coast and continental shelf, and some makes its way to the ultimate sink, the [...]... Read more »

Covault, J.A., Romans, B.W., Graham, S.A., Fildani, A., & Hilley, G.E. (2011) Terrestrial source to deep-sea sink sediment budgets at high and low sea levels: Insights from tectonically active southern California. Geology, 619-622. info:/10.1130/G31801.1

March 4, 2011
01:08 PM
1,282 views

The Long Beat of Rhythmic Sedimentation

by Brian Romans in Clastic Detritus

The history of Earth is recorded in rocks. And the history of events and conditions at the Earth’s surface, including the origin and evolution of life, is recorded in sedimentary rocks. The deposition of clastic sediments (broken pieces of other rocks in the form of sand, silt, and mud) and precipitation of chemical sediments from solution [...]... Read more »

Meyers, S., & Peters, S. (2011) A 56million year rhythm in North American sedimentation during the Phanerozoic. Earth and Planetary Science Letters. DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2010.12.044

January 8, 2011
07:49 PM
886 views

I’ve Been Selected for the Open Lab 2010 Anthology of Science Blogging

by Brian Romans in Clastic Detritus

I am pleased to announce that I’ve been selected as one of the 50 finalists for the Open Lab 2010 compendium of science blogging. I’m absolutely thrilled to be included in this group of talented and enthusiastic communicators of science. Below is the post that will appear in the volume (to be published in [...]... Read more »

Lamb, M., & Fonstad, M. (2010) Rapid formation of a modern bedrock canyon by a single flood event. Nature Geoscience. DOI: 10.1038/ngeo894

November 23, 2010
11:03 AM
1,070 views

Deep-Water Sand Dunes in the South China Sea

by Brian Romans in Clastic Detritus

When you think of sand dunes you most likely picture the vast sand seas of the Sahara Desert or perhaps ancient dunes preserved in rocks on display in places like Zion National Park. Sand dunes are the textbook example illustrating how moving fluid constructs and interacts with piles of loose sediment.
But wind isn’t the only [...]... Read more »

Reeder, D., Ma, B., & Yang, Y. (2010) Very large subaqueous sand dunes on the upper continental slope in the South China Sea generated by episodic, shoaling deep-water internal solitary waves. Marine Geology. DOI: 10.1016/j.margeo.2010.10.009

July 14, 2010
11:28 AM
1,260 views

Modern agriculture a major control of increased rates of dust flux from continent to ocean

by Brian Romans in Clastic Detritus

Strong winds can pick up dust particles* from continents and carry them thousands of kilometers where they are deposited on the ocean floor. Deserts are especially important contributors of dust with the Sahara Desert of northern Africa being the single largest source of mineral dust in the world. The occurrence of this process has been [...]... Read more »

Mulitza, S., Heslop, D., Pittauerova, D., Fischer, H., Meyer, I., Stuut, J., Zabel, M., Mollenhauer, G., Collins, J., Kuhnert, H.... (2010) Increase in African dust flux at the onset of commercial agriculture in the Sahel region. Nature, 466(7303), 226-228. DOI: 10.1038/nature09213

June 28, 2010
12:00 PM
1,146 views

Using sedimentation rates to infer long-term global climate change

by Brian Romans in Clastic Detritus

Over geologic time scales, the Earth naturally captures carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through weathering of silicate rocks and sequesters it via the production of carbonate rocks. Ultimately, subduction can return these rocks to the Earth’s interior and carbon dioxide is once again emitted into the atmosphere by volcanism. Thus, understanding the history of erosion [...]... Read more »

Willenbring, J., & von Blanckenburg, F. (2010) Long-term stability of global erosion rates and weathering during late-Cenozoic cooling. Nature, 465(7295), 211-214. DOI: 10.1038/nature09044

June 27, 2010
11:00 AM
1,234 views

Sea-Floor Sunday #65: Makran accretionary wedge

by Brian Romans in Clastic Detritus

This week’s Sea-Floor Sunday image is from a recent paper in Sedimentology by Bourget et al. that investigates the deep-marine sedimentary system associated with the Makran subduction zone and accretionary wedge in the northwest Indian Ocean (offshore of Iran and Pakistan). The Arabian plate is subducting northward underneath continental blocks now part of the Eurasian [...]... Read more »

BOURGET, J., ZARAGOSI, S., ELLOUZ-ZIMMERMANN, N., MOUCHOT, N., GARLAN, T., SCHNEIDER, J., LANFUMEY, V., & LALLEMANT, S. (2010) Turbidite system architecture and sedimentary processes along topographically complex slopes: the Makran convergent margin. Sedimentology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-3091.2010.01168.x

June 23, 2010
10:53 AM
17,598 views

Rapid canyon formation and uniformitarianism

by Brian Romans in Clastic Detritus

In 2002, flood waters from Canyon Lake dam reservoir in central Texas were diverted into an emergency spillway at nearly 200 times the normal flow rate. The resulting flood event, which lasted for six weeks, removed trees and sediment and excavated a 7 m deep and >1 km long canyon into the limestone bedrock. A [...]... Read more »

Lamb, M., & Fonstad, M. (2010) Rapid formation of a modern bedrock canyon by a single flood event. Nature Geoscience. DOI: 10.1038/ngeo894

June 21, 2009
04:00 AM
2,083 views

Sea-Floor Sunday #50: Saline density flow channel network

by Brian Romans in Clastic Detritus

This week’s Sea-Floor Sunday is an image from a recent paper from Flood et al. about channel networks on the floor of the Black Sea (you can see the entire paper here).

What I find interesting about this system is that it forms from saline density flows that come from the Bosphorus (the strait that separates [...]... Read more »

FLOOD, R., HISCOTT, R., & AKSU, A. (2009) Morphology and evolution of an anastomosed channel network where saline underflow enters the Black Sea. Sedimentology, 56(3), 807-839. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-3091.2008.00998.x

December 31, 2008
02:13 PM
2,202 views

Climate cycles recorded in Mars sediments?

by Brian Romans in Clastic Detritus

I first saw this press release on the Arizona Geology blog a couple weeks ago and it caught my eye. Cycles in sediments — I love that topic. Who doesn’t?!

A study led by researchers from Caltech used high-resolution images of the surface of Mars (from HiRISE) to document and analyze ancient sedimentary layering exposed at [...]... Read more »

K. W. Lewis, O. Aharonson, J. P. Grotzinger, R. L. Kirk, A. S. McEwen, & T.-A. Suer. (2008) Quasi-Periodic Bedding in the Sedimentary Rock Record of Mars. Science, 322(5907), 1532-1535. DOI: 10.1126/science.1161870

October 26, 2008
10:00 AM
1,136 views

Stratigraphic evolution of an ancient depositional slope system

by Brian Romans in Clastic Detritus

Discussion of paper in journal Sedimentology about stratigraphic architecture of Upper Cretaceous strata in southern Chile.... Read more »

ROMANS, B., HUBBARD, S., & GRAHAM, S. (2009) Stratigraphic evolution of an outcropping continental slope system, Tres Pasos Formation at Cerro Divisadero, Chile. Sedimentology, 56(3), 737-764. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-3091.2008.00995.x

May 28, 2008
05:00 AM
1,141 views

Source-to-Sink: The future of sedimentary geology?

by Brian Romans in Clastic Detritus

Discussion of Allen (2008) essay in Nature about Earth surface processes research directions.... Read more »

Allen, P. (2008) From landscapes into geological history. Nature, 451(7176), 274-276. DOI: 10.1038/nature06586

January 21, 2008
12:09 PM
2,553 views

Sea-Floor Sunday #9: Continental slope near Fraser Island, Australia

by Brian Romans in Clastic Detritus

This week I decided to combine a sea floor image with a post about a paper that came out in Geology this month about everybody’s favorite topic — sediment transfer to the deep sea! The paper is called Highstand transport of coastal sand to the deep ocean: A case study from Fraser Island, Australia by ... Read more »

Ron Boyd, Kevin Ruming, Ian Goodwin, Marianne Sandstrom, & Claudia Schröder-Adams. (2008) Highstand transport of coastal sand to the deep ocean: A case study from Fraser Island, southeast Australia. Geology, 36(1), 15. DOI: 10.1130/G24211A.1