Dr. Drew Brayshaw 🌊🪨
@drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
1.8K followers 440 following 4.3K posts
Hydrologist, photographer, geoscience consultant, mycophile, sarcastic, dude.
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Reposted by Dr. Drew Brayshaw 🌊🪨
ichnologist.bsky.social
Glad to see the "Chicago rat hole" (rodent-body imprint) of January 2024 Internet fame was studied more, but just to add my $0.02: Many folks missed the tracks leading away from the body imprint, meaning the squirrel (not rat) fell & splatted in wet concrete, but then walked it off. 🧪🐿️🐾
Photo showing the outline of small rodent body as a negative (concave) impression in sidewalk concrete, with left two limbs clearly defined but missing the upper right limb (arm) and only part of the right rear limb (leg); a thin tail is implied by a pointed imprint behind the main body imprint. The photo is labeled with "Direction of rodent movement" and a red arrow pointing to the upper right of the photo, and a red circle is around a set of rodent tracks in the upper right near the body imprint, labeled as "Rodent tracks."
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
The only substantial tributary (substantial relative to the two big rivers) we miss with those two gauges is Stein River, and it's usually <<1% of their combined discharges.

So, pretty close overall.
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
There are no stream gauges right at Camchin so we can use the nearest upstream gauges, Fraser River below Texas Creek on the Fraser, and Thompson River near Spences Bridge on the Thompson, as close approximations.
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
There's also a real-time data link on the same hydrometric data page.
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
Sometimes it's a lot shorter than 1 km! Like in the middle of freshet
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
Maybe, but not nearly as prominently
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
One last point re:fav landslide #5, harking back to that LIDAR hillshade. There are some huge bedrock cracks along the western edge of the second slide. Trenches and ridges 20 m+ high. Nothing seems to be actively moving there, but it's still not a good idea to spend too much time directly downslope
Concentric, arcuate ridge-and-trench complex on the subalpine crest just west of the second Katz slide scarp, taken from the air in early winter.
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
...then the slide probably occurred during spring freshet when Fraser River water is at its most turbid!
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
I have this idea that one could do mineralogy on the silt/clay layer and figure out source and timing for the slide that caused the dam that deposited the sediment. If it's minerals from the slide debris, slide occurred in fall/winter. If it's typical Fraser River fines from upcountry, though...
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
The slide deposits cut off a bunch of Fraser River channels on the north side of the valley and pushed Fraser River to the south side. In the back channel area, a silt and clay layer overlies porous river gravels. Cut through the clay and water will dewater into the underlying gravels.
A restored wetland at Chawathil. Can't dig the ponds too deep or they'll drain and end up dry!
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
there's some possible TEK from the folks at Chawathil about these slides too. Allegedly, hunters used to go from Chawathil through a crack in the mountain into American Creek to the north. But one day the crack slammed shut and blocked the hunting route. Is that describing one of the slides? Maybe.
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
Because the first one completely blocked Fraser River that means the gradient of the river is basically totally flat from Silver Creek's fan just outside Hope, to Katz slide, where the river has filled in sediment behind the landslide dam.
Flying down the flat reach towards Katz from Hope in winter. Gas pipeline crossing the river in the foreground.
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
The history of the Katz slides is pretty neat. The first (larger, older) one doesn't have a published age yet. It completely blocked Fraser River but was quickly overtopped by water & sediment. The second, younger one, 3250 BP, didn't quite block the valley and was about 15X10^6 m3.
Looking down the Katz slides from helicopter to the north. Deposit #2 is the forested flat area at the base including the small lake.
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
This is one where looking at a hillshade based on the LIDAR is super useful! Not only can you see the two landslide scarps and some smaller rocksliude scarps, you can also see lumpy deposit #2 really well as some deep-seated gravitational slope displacement (DSGSD), big cracks, west of scar #2
Hillshade generated from LIDAR DEM
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
#5 is also actually at least two separate landslides, the Katz slide complex, west of Chawathil and east of Skawahlook on the north side of Fraser River along Highway 7, about 11 km west of Hope. (red dots in image, LS01511 and LS01512)
Reposted by Dr. Drew Brayshaw 🌊🪨
hlee.bsky.social
👀👀"...at least two cold climate intervals during the late Tonian Period, thereby providing novel insights into the evolution of global climate conditions in advance of the Cryogenian Snowball Earth" (preprint) ⚒️🧪❄️
www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-7...
Tonian glaciation in South China
Paleoclimatic conditions during the Tonian Period (~1000-720 Ma), preceding the Cryogenian Snowball Earth glaciations, remain ambiguous. While the apparent paucity of glacially influenced sedimentary ...
www.researchsquare.com
Reposted by Dr. Drew Brayshaw 🌊🪨
nytimes.com
Months before catastrophic floods swept through an Alaska Native village on Sunday, the Trump administration canceled a $20 million grant meant to protect the community from extreme flooding. At the time, the EPA administrator said he was eliminating "wasteful DEI and Environmental Justice grants."
E.P.A. Canceled $20 Million Flood Protection Grant to Alaska, Parts of Which Just Flooded
The remote village of Kipnuk planned to use the money to protect against flooding. On Sunday, it was inundated.
nyti.ms
Reposted by Dr. Drew Brayshaw 🌊🪨
rosemarymosco.com
Spooky bird stories. Last year's Halloween comic.
A comic titled Spooky Bird Stories. In panel 1, a turkey vulture is telling stories to other vultures, and it says, "She walked toward the source of the terrible smell. She got closer and closer, and then, to her horror, she saw... No dead body." A black vulture says "No!" and a turkey vulture says "Did someone already eat it??"
In panel 2, a northern cardinal is telling a story to some songbirds. It says "They peered through the windows of the house at the gory scene. Zombies had smashed through the door in the night. The homeowner was dead. But worst of all... He hadn't refilled the feeders." An eastern bluebird says "Aaah!" and an American goldfinch says "It can't be!".
In panel 3, a screech owl is telling a story to other owls. It says "And then the ghost fluffed itself up really big to appear scarier." A saw-whet owl gasps, and a long-eared owl says "Horrifying!".
In panel 4, a downy woodpecker is telling a story to other woodpeckers, and says "The eerie sound rang through the dark woods. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. It was the distinctive two-part knock of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The species had returned from the dead... FOR REVENGE." A red-cockaded woodpecker says "Yesss".
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
The main difference in Hixon to the pics in the linked article is that these are oriented transverse to the flow instead of just tamped down flat into the bank
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
We have by now all heard of "car brain" but what about "car groyne"?

This riverbank near Hixon BC has some old wrecks jammed into it, apparently intended as some sort of erosion protection 😱
Wrecks and riverbanks Wreck and bank and riparian veg Somewhat crushed cars oriented at near perpendicular to flow and jammed into bank and dirt covered Is it working? Maybe better than no erosion protection at all. Is it good for the river? Sure isn't. Is it some bespoke low-budget half assed rural solution to a problem that wasn't? You bet.
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
Obviously what's wrong is that the tank can't yet sense fear in its targets, unlike in that Sever Gansovsky story