Water volume and sediment volume and density in Lake Linganore between Boyers Mill Road Bridge and Bens Branch, Frederick County, Maryland, 2012

Abstract

For more information on the USGS-the Federal source for science about the Earth, its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment, visit http://www.usgs.gov or call 1-888-ASK-USGS For an overview of USGS information products, including maps, imagery, and publications, visit http://www.usgs.gov/pubprodTo order this and other USGS information products, visit http://store.usgs.gov Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.Although this report is in the public domain, permission must be secured from the individual copyright owners to reproduce any copyrighted materials contained within this report. AbstractTo assist in understanding sediment loadings and the management of water resources, a bathymetric survey was conducted in the part of Lake Linganore between Boyers Mill Road Bridge and Bens Branch in Frederick County, Maryland. The bathymetric survey was performed in January 2012 by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the City of Frederick and Frederick County. A separate, but related, field effort to collect 18 sediment cores was conducted in March and April 2012. Depth and location data from the bathymetric survey and location data for the sediment cores were compiled and edited by using geographic information system (GIS) software. A three-dimensional triangulated irregular network (TIN) model of the lake bottom was created to calculate the volume of stored water in the reservoir. Large-scale topographic maps of the valley prior to inundation in 1972 were provided by the Frederick County Division of Utilities and Solid Waste Management and digitized for comparison with current (2012) conditions in order to calculate sediment volume. Cartographic representations of both water depth and sediment accumulation were produced, along with an accuracy assessment for the resulting bathymetric model. Vertical accuracies at the 95-percent confidence level for the collected data, the bathymetric surface model, and the bathymetric contour map were calculated to be 0.64 feet (ft), 1.77 ft, and 2.30 ft, respectively. A dry bulk sediment density was calculated for each of the 18 sediment cores collected during March and April 2012, and used to determine accumulated sediment mass.Water-storage capacity in the study area is 110 acre-feet (acre-ft) at a full-pool elevation 308 ft above the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929, whereas total sediment volume in the study area is 202 acre-ft. These totals indicate a loss of about 65 percent of the original water-storage capacity in the 40 years since dam construction. This corresponds to an average rate of sediment accumulation of 5.1 acre-ft per year since Linganore Creek was impounded.Sediment thicknesses ranged from 0 to 16.7 ft. Sediment densities ranged from 0.38 to 1.08 grams per cubic centimeter, and generally decreased in the downstream direction. The total accumulated-sediment mass was 156,000 metric tons between 1972 and 2012.

Comment on bg-2021-39

“…Due to the very low organic carbon content of sediments, the majority of the total sediment comprises inorganic detritus. The average calculated sediment density shows high agreement with global syntheses of sediment bulk density measured from lacustrine and fluvial sediments (Avnimelech et al, 2001;Haflidason et al, 2019;Munroe & Brencher, 2019; Sekellick et al, 2013). Sediment densities are however observed to be significantly higher than the average 645 calculated for Holocene Finnish lakes (0.25 g cm -3 ) mostly due to greater organic carbon and water contents than those remarked for Rauchuagytgyn sediments (Pajunen, 2000).…”

Sediment Properties Drive Spatial Variability of Potential Methane Production and Oxidation in Small Streams

“…Sediment was pushed upward within the core tube and sampled at layers coinciding with porewater extraction depths as described above. At each depth, a 5‐ml sub‐sample was taken with cut‐off syringe and weighed, prior to wet bulk density determination according to Sekellick et al ().…”

Development of digital bathymetry maps for Lakes Azuei and Enriquillo using sonar and remote sensing techniques

“…Second, much of the slopes are made up of vegetated retaining soil and are also comprised of rocky substrate that (a) moves slowly and (b) does not have a lot of mobilizable small‐size sediments. Third, recent work on the lakes involving coring (Sloan et al, ) showed that the amount of sediment added over decadal time scales is relatively small, suggesting that the lakes experience very low sedimentation rates, much below those reported by Sekellick et al () and Rahmani et al (). We can also confirm from our own observations that the water in both lakes appeared quite transparent, with low turbidity.…”

“…just a few weeks at most), were considered insignificant when targeting volume calculations, which was our survey focus, and thus were not addressed separately. Sedimentation resulting in a smaller estimate of the volume of water, thus introducing a potential error, has been reported in the literature (Rahmani et al, ; Sekellick, Banks, & Myers, ), but we decided not to consider this effect for a number of reasons. First, the streams flowing into the lakes are of ephemeral nature (i.e.…”