CORE, Characterizing Oxbows for Reconstructing the Environment
Environmental history beneath the floodplain.
CORE develops high-resolution environmental records from abandoned river channels in the South Carolina lowlands, where deep, protected sediments can preserve changes difficult to resolve in actively reworked floodplains.
The archive
A former river becomes a sediment trap.
When a meander is cut off from an active channel, the resulting oxbow can begin accumulating fine sediment, organic matter, pollen, charcoal, and other environmental evidence in comparatively ordered sequences.
The archive is not automatic. Oxbows differ in age, depth, connection, erosion, and disturbance. CORE therefore begins by characterizing basin geometry and landscape position before interpreting the material recovered from a core.
These records can extend beyond the period covered by written documents and often resolve events that upland soils or active river deposits have erased. They offer a way to connect floodplain evolution, climate variability, ecological change, land use, and human occupation across multiple timescales.
The questions
How do we turn a sediment sequence into environmental history?
01
When did the channel become an oxbow?
Dating channel abandonment establishes the beginning of the archive and the processes that formed the basin.
02
Which events are local, and which are regional?
Multiple proxies and multiple basins help distinguish a single flood, catchment change, vegetation shift, or broader climatic transition.
03
Where do people enter the record?
Charcoal, erosion, contaminants, vegetation change, archaeology, and historical land use are interpreted together rather than assigned to “natural” or “human” causes in advance.
The investigation
Characterize first. Interpret second.
CORE links geophysics, mapping, coring, laboratory analyses, and dating so that changes in a sediment column remain connected to the geometry and history of the basin.
- Aerial imagery, elevation data, and field reconnaissance define former channels and sampling positions.
- Long sediment cores document stratigraphy, texture, organic content, and boundaries between depositional regimes.
- Grain size, elemental geochemistry, mineralogy, pollen, charcoal, and other biological indicators track changing sources and environments.
- Radiocarbon, luminescence, and recent-isotope chronologies are applied where materials and timescales make them appropriate.
- Regional archaeological and historical records provide independent evidence for human settlement, land use, and disturbance.
A target, not a shortcut
The Younger Dryas is one question within a longer record.
Abrupt climate events are compelling, but a core cannot be assigned to an event by depth or appearance alone.
CORE evaluates whether selected basins preserve sediments of sufficient age and continuity to resolve the Younger Dryas and other transitions. The project’s broader value lies in building chronologically controlled records that can test such questions rather than assuming the answer in advance.
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