OHIO'S MIAMI AND ERIE CANAL: A SEDIMENT RECORD OF ANTHROPOGENIC AND CLIMATIC CHANGE

The Miami and Erie Canal operated as a transportation artery linking the Ohio Valley to the Great Lakes from 1828 to 1929, a time span that witnessed the end of the Little Ice Age (LIA) around 1850. In its hundred-year history the canal served as an effective commerce line allowing goods to be transported for a fraction of the cost of overland transport. The hydrologic engine driving the canal was fueled by a series of man-made feeder reservoirs that ranged in scale from lakes to ponds. After the abandonment of the Miami and Erie Canal the majority of these smaller reservoirs gradually filled with sediments. The scope of this study examines chemical, mineralogical and paleoclimatic data collected through sediment analysis. Samples collected from a canal feeder pond in the Clifton Ridge area of Cincinnati, Ohio were analyzed with X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and for magnetic susceptibility (MS). The results of these analyses provide bulk chemical data of major and trace elements present in the soil of the feeder pond fill, identification of clay minerals present in the soil fill and climate signals recorded in the accumulated sediments. Chemical analysis of the pond fill sediments shows that Barium (Ba), Copper (Cu), Lead (Pb) and Zinc (Zn) are much higher in the pond sediment than in the hillside soils, possibly providing a record of industrial activity in the area. XRD analysis of the reservoir sediments was compared to local soils and glacial outwash sediments to determine provenance. Reservoir sediments were found to have clay minerals not present in the local soils and a high percentage of quartz in the clay size fraction. Trends in the MS data obtained from the reservoir indicate two distinct scales of climate cyclicity recorded in the sediments. A persisting annual cycle is apparent in addition to a seven-year cycle, which appears towards the end of the eighteenth century. This seven-year climatic cycle may be evidence of a climate shift out of the LIA to more systematic climate cyclicity.