Where on (Google) Earth? #82

Where on (Google) Earth? #82 After a hint, I found Ron’s volcanic complex. Which means I can declare the recent trend of oblique images to be so very last week, and return to some straight-up, top-down imagery. I would really like a geomorphologist (or at least, someone who can play a geomorphologist on the Internets) to tell me what’s going on in this picture.

I’ll invoke the Schott Rule here – previous WoGE winners must wait one hour from posting time (~22:00 Mountain Standard Time) for each round they’ve won. Good luck!

Comments

  1. Ron Schott wrote:

    I’m no fluvial geomorphologist, so I can’t tell you too much about why the rivers in this area are alternately braided and meandering, but as a hard rock geologist I can tell you that it has something to do with the 2020 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. These valleys around the volcano, including these on the west side, were filled with an estimated 4-8 cubic kilometers of pyroclastic material during the cataclysmic eruption on June 15th. My guess is that in those areas where the pyroclastic material is voluminous enough you tend to get a braided channel morphology; other areas – perhaps where the deposits were not so thick or have already been significantly eroded away – show a meandering character that probably was prevalent prior to the eruption.

    It’s scary how quick I found this one once I started looking. The grey colors in the drainages screamed out “recent pyroclastic eruption” and The Philippines was the first place I went looking – probably because of the lushness of the vegetation outside of the floodplains.

    Google Scholar offers these references in a search on “pinatubo fluvial geomorphology“.

  2. Lab Lemming wrote:

    It looks to me like water is running downhill in that photo. Possibly with a clastic sediment load.

  3. Lab Lemming wrote:

    For some reason, all your posts list as having zero comments when viewing your blog.

  4. Ron Schott wrote:

    WoGE #83 is up.

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