The Professorship's Research Projects
Importance of near-surface substrates for water balance and material transfer
(Coorperation with the Bayreuth Institute for Terrestrial Ecosystem Research and the Chair of Hydrology, Prof. R. Herrmann)
Slope water dynamics in small spring catchments in the Franconian Forest (Frankenwald) as a function of the near-surface substrates, in connection with the BMBF project Redox Chemistry in Soil and Spring Water in catchments of the Franconian Forest.
Overview
A major problem is e.g. in pollutant research, the poor knowledge of the runoff pathways which is becoming increasingly apparent. The chemical composition of the water flowing from a slope is often out of balance with the soils of the catchment area. The reason for this is the high speed and the short retention time of the water in the soil and substrate. Such rapid runoff processes are also of great importance for the development of floods. The cause of rapid near-surface runoff is the layered structure of the near-surface subsoil, which deflects percolating water from its vertical direction of movement parallel to the slope.
Publications
Kleber et al. (1998a), Kleber & Schellenberger (1998), Schellenberger et al. (1998), Kleber & Schellenberger (1999)
Priorities
Modelling of the near-suface slope water dynamics in a spring catchment area in the Franconian Forest, transfer to areas of other natural features.
Differentiation of indigenous and anthropogenic heavy metal loads in the cover layers of the Steigerwald
(Project patner Prof. W. Zech, Chair of Soil Science at UTB)
Overview
Attempts to quantitatively seperate the anthropogenic (human-induced) heavy metal load in mineral soils from the indigenous (naturally inherent in the rock) contents have been hindered by the regular occurence of several geochemically heterogeneous layers of the near-surface subsurface. A stratigraphic approach is used to calibrate existing methods (binding forms, aggregate fractionation). For this purpose, closely adjacent exposed and protected against contamination but otherwise identical substrates are compared with each other.
Publications
Kleber et al. (1998b), Kleber & Mailänder (1998), Kleber & Mailänder (in review)
Priorities
The approach is to be extended to other areas of investigation of other natural features in German mountain ranges. A separate examination of the shell and core is also planned.
Young-quarter cover layers and their soils as paloclimate emitters in the northern Great Basin and adjacent mountains (USA).
Overview
Cover layers and their floors are located on or between dated lake sediments, coastal forms and glacial deposits. This allows them to be stratigraphically reliably classified. Assuming that cover layers and soils are essentially controlled paleoclimaticly, they may also be assumed to have arisen in areas outside of such dating possibilities under similar conditions and nearly synchronous if they show similar sequences of processes. Thus, the paleoclimate can be studied for gradients, the factors of soil distribution can be assessed on an area-wide basis and any relief can be studied according to its age.
Priorities:
Dating of periglacial top layers
The dating of solifluid rearrangement products with loess imitation is at best possible relatively stratigraphically. Therefore, independent methods (OSL and possibly visco-remanent magnetization of rock fragments) are to be tested on such substrates. The areas of work are the western part of the USA and, after development and testing of suitable methods, Central Europe.
Elevation gradients of periglacial sediments and their soils in the Rocky Mountains
Previous studies in the Rocky Mountains have shown an unexpectedly low variability of soils with elevation. This is to be tested at higher altitudes up to 4000 m and with a mapping approach.
Young Quaternary slope and soil development in moraines of Central Russia
(Project partner Dr. V. V. Gusev, Lomonosov University, Moscow)
Overview
On the Russian Plain loess-bearing cover layers on sediments of the last two ice ages are widespread. They can be subdivided into a loess-free, compacted lower layer, a thick, loess-containing middle layer and a loose, low-density upper surface layer. They are often subdivided by a paleosol horizon of the last interglacial.
Publications
Kleber (1997), Kleber & Gusev (1992), Kleber & Gusev (1998), Kleber (1999)
Priorities:
By comparing eroded and near-natural profiles, the heavy metal content of the soils of the Russian plain will be separated into their anthropogenic and natural components. Deposition gradients windward and leeward of the city of Moscow are also to be investigated.
Young Quaternary soil development on different rocks of the Basin of Siteron, Haute Provence, Southern France
Overview
In the French Western Alps, mountainous locations show a similar structure of the cover layers to the German one, albeit with a more immature soil development. In the basin, however, there are less structured unlooshed profiles.
Publications
Kleber (1997), Kleber (1999)
Priorities
Elevation gradients of periglacial sediments and their soils in the Western Alps. Previous studies have shown a structure of soils and substrates in the French Western Alps similar to that of Central Europe, which has not yet been documented in other parts of the Alps. From here to the east, it is therefore a suitable area to investigate the existence and severity of young quarter paleoclimatic gradients in the Alps, partly because of the spread of the Laacher-See-Tephra to Western Switzerland.
Loess-bearing sediments in the Konya Basin, Southern Central Turkey
Overview
In Inner Anatolia, loess-containing top layers occur, which differ little from each other in sedimentology. However, they are separated by soil formations. The soils consist of clay enrichment horizons and basal lime enrichment horizons. The latter have largely dominated fossil deeper soils.
Publications
Kleber (1997), Kleber (1999)
Laacher-See-Tephra in Brugundy soil, France
Overview
Traces of the Laacher-See-Tephra were found in the top layer of profiles in which the aeolian deposition from the north was favoured by the relief. In a situation less suitable for deposition, the detection was not unquestionably successful. It can be assumed that the last major geomorphological formation of the slopes of this area took place in the recent tundra period. This formed a top layer with built-in aeolian components. Only then could the soil form begin to form a large surface.
Publication
Kleber (1994)
The history of the upper Roter Main and the Trebgasttal
Rivers are relief elements with high variability. On the one hand, they are characterized by a mutliple change of erosion and filling processes, which is reflected in the so called river terraces and which is caused by changes in the climate or movements in the earth's crust (tectonics). Secondly, the course of many rivers has not remained constant in the past but they have been tapped and diverted by other water bodies. Based on a fundamental discussion of these interrelationships, the lecture deals with the development and age of the river terraces in the upper Roter Main and Trebgast valleys and with the river diversions in these valleys. In the catchment area of the Roter Main, five river terraces can be mapped regularly, which can be assigned to the last four cold periods of the glacial age. Since these can also be found in the upper Roter Main valley and because of the composition of their gravels there, the previous ideas about the river-historical development of this section of the valley have to be revised to a large extent. A river flowing to the north (not to the south) was last tapped from the Pegnitz system between the penultimate and the last cold period (not in the Tertiary). This process and in particular the difference in height between the five terraces in the upper and lower parts of the valley can only be explained by neotectonics. The cause are movements at the Creußner fault in a dimension of 10m per 100,000 years, which must have lasted until the Late Quaternary. This is the first evidence of an activity of the earth's crust in the so called upper Main fault blocks zone, i.e. in the area between the Franconian Alps and the Fichtelgebirge, which practically reaches into the present. The Trebgast valley between Bayreuth/Bindlach and Trebgast, a former valley connection between the today's Roter and Weißer Main, represents a long discussed river historical problem. Its genesis is inferred with the help of terrace photogrphs and gravel analyses. It is shown that the development to the present river network did not take place in one but in several phases as previously assumed. Up to the third last glacial period, today's Roter Main and Steinach rivers flowed together through the Trebgast valley. Afterwards, during a filling phase, a first diversion took place, since which the Roter Main has taken its present course, while the Steinach flowed unchanged through the Trebgast valley. At the beginning of an erosion phase of the last Late Glacial, the Steinach was tapped by the Roter Main and the present river network was established. For river development research, it proves that:
- Also in a tectonically active area such as the breakwelling zone, climatic development determined the formation of river terraces.
- River diversions are not necessesarily linked to erosion phases, as it is often assumed, but may also occur during periods of re-shedging.
Publications:
Kleber et al. (1988), Kleber (1989), Kleber & Stingl (2000)
Loess structuring on the Northern Franconian Alps near Scheßlitz
(Project partner Prof. Kaupenjohann, Hohenheim)
Overview
The main focus of the work was the significance of the mineral spectrum in loess sediments for the detection of the Laacher-See-Tephra
Hydrogeography in the context of a "geoecological map"
Survey and representation possibilities with field methods using the example of a catchment area in Burdundy, France (no publications yet).
Prognosis of pollutant flows in the context of the remediation of contamined military sites in thearea of Christensen Barracks, Bindlach
The military use of Bindlacher Berg by the Wehrmacht and the US Army has left a rich supply of organic and inorganic pollutants over a large area. The projekt aims to predict which path these pollutants are likely to take with the leachate and what remediation measures need to be taken as a result.
© K. Lassig
Professor
NameProf. Dr. habil. Arno Kleber
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