Great Smoky Mountain Erosion Rates

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited National Park in the United States. This impressively steep terrain is wet and heavily vegetated. Intensive sampling of both fluvial sediment and exposed bedrock, as well as analysis of other erosion rate proxy data, indicates that the Great Smoky Mountains are eroding slowly (few tens of meters per million years) and uniformly over space and time.

Project Support

USGS Erosion of Great Smoky National Park, USGS 00HQAG022
Proposal Project Summary (download pdf)

Links related to this project

National Park Service Great Smoky Mountains web site

People Working on this Project

Paul Bierman
Jennifer Larsen
Ari Matmon
Milan Pavich
C. Scott Southworth

Publications Related to this Project

Matmon, A., Bierman, P.R., Larsen, J., Southworth, S., Pavich, M., and Caffee, M., 2003, Temporally and spatially uniform rates of erosion in the southern Appalachian Great Smoky Mountains: Geology, v. 31, p. 155-158. (download pdf)

Matmon, A.S., Bierman, P., Larsen, J., Southworth, S., Pavich, M., Finkel, R., and Caffee, M., 2003, Erosion of an ancient mountain range, the Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina and Tennessee: American Journal of Science, v. 303, p. 817-855. (download pdf)

Matmon, A.S., Bierman, P.R., Larsen, J., Southworth, S., Pavich, M., Finkel, R., and Caffee, M., 2003, ERRATA: Erosion of an ancient mountain range, the Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina and Tennessee: American Journal of Science, v. 303, p. 972-973. (download pdf)

Abstracts Related to this Project

Bierman, P.R., Nichols, K.K., Sullivan, C., Duxbury, J., and Matmon, A., 2007, Little influence of grain size on cosmogenic ¹⁰Be concentration in river sediment: Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, v. 39, p. 137. (download pdf)

Duxbury, J., Bierman, P.R., Pavich, M., Southworth, S., Matmon, A., Larsen, J., and Finkel, R.C., 2007, Using cosmogenic isotopes to interpret landscape change in National Parks: Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, v. 39, p. 378. (download pdf)

Bierman, P.R., Pavich, M., Reusser, L., Matmon, A., Sullivan, C., Duxbury, J., Larsen, J., Finkel, R., and Reuter, J., 2006, Erosion in an old decaying mountain range-the Appalachians: Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, v. 38, p. 175. (download pdf)

Matmon, A., Bierman, P.R., Southworth, S., Pavich, M., and Caffee, M., 2001, Temporally and spatially uniform rates of erosion in the Great Smoky Mountains, Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, Volume 33, p. A-315. (download pdf)

Matmon, A., Bierman, P.R., Southworth, S., Pavich, M., Caffee, M., and Finkel, R., 2001, Rates of erosion determined from ¹⁰Be analysis of sediments, Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee and North Carolina: Eos. Trans. AGU, v. 82. (download pdf)

Last modified January 28 2009 09:59 AM