Sediment Deposition Along the Kokosing: The Platform of Life

Stepping on the muddy banks of the Kokosing was intrusive, eye-widening, and eventually therapeutic this semester. I often had to tip-toe to my spot because the mud of the banks would suffocate my shoes and stick to them. The mud was yellow-tinted on most days when the sun was out and darker when the sun was behind the clouds or it had recently rained. When I would eventually make it to the point on the beach that I considered the starting border of my ‘spot’, there was no place to sit so my shoes would sink into the mud a little more. I highlight the part of my spot beneath my feet because while I observed the above-ground occurrences of my spot, I eventually reconciled that I too was sharing the same ground as everything around me. The mud anchored me to my spot just as it does the roots of the huge maple tree. It was the platform on which life occurred and intermingled right in front of me. This mud has a story of arrival worth learning.

Most basically, sediment deposition is the slow process of sediment moving locations throughout the world (given enough time) via erosion. To break this down, the Natural Geographic Resource Library defines sediment as natural solid mass that has been deposited in a specific location and will be deposited in a new location again. Sediment can be made up of rock, mineral, and organic matter left behind by flora and fauna. (Natural Geographic Society, “Sediment”). The mud that makes up the ground of my spot is most likely composed of all these things. This sediment did not necessarily originate at my spot or anywhere near it, in fact. Sediment becomes small enough to travel via erosion. This transmission occurs through wind, water, and ice to list some examples. Wind can pick up bits of sediment and deposit it randomly when the winds subside. Rivers and streams with fast currents can deposit sediment miles from where the sediment was picked up in deltas, waterfalls bases, and river banks like my spot on the Kokosing. In the glacial age, glaciers would push and break up rocks, picking up and carrying various bits of broken sediment across very long distances as well. These three major methods of transportation are largely responsible for the sediment deposition across the world (ie. why all sediment is where it is). It is quite amazing to look at and feel sediment knowing that it has come across miles of land or water to be located where it is and will eventually move again. The longevity of the land’s journey is humbling when fully understood. Humility was a common emotion I experienced by the banks of the Kokosing this semester.

When thinking about the method by which my spot’s muddy sediment arrived, river transportation sticks out to me as the Kokosing’s potential to deposit sediment into my spot must not be ignored. Its proximity makes it a likely culprit for the majority of my spot’s mud and sand accumulation. Slow rivers erode and carry sediment more slowly than rivers with fast currents. A current of a river is what causes the erosion to the river’s surroundings. Because the Kokosing’s current is slower than a river up in the mountains or river weaving around and down steep slopes, the deposition of my spot must have occurred slowly over many years. Where rivers like the Kokosing have the most friction-less flowing movement, they erode and cut away at the river bank which eventually triggers a bending effect in the river’s path. This happens over months to years depending on the force, speed, and friction of the river’s current. As the river continues to erode the embankment on one side, the bend becomes more accentuated and forms what is called a “meander”. A meander is essentially a bend in the river. It’s given the name as a meandering river appears to “wander” through the land. When I learned my spot was on the inside of a meander, the level of sand and mud deposition where I stood compared to directly across the river made sense. The other side of the meander was a taller river bank with nowhere to stand, representing erosion - not much deposition. I imagined the curve of the river current depositing sediment day after day over years to create a small area of flat sediment similar to a floodplain that I stood on and called my spot (National Geographic Society, “Floodplain”). Rivers erode floodplains or smaller flat banks, like on the Kokosing, as well as more elevated banks as they meander back and forth downstream. As a river erodes the outer side of a meander, the swirling current then carries that eroded sediment as well as more upstream sediment and deposits it on the other side of the meander. This is the basic process by which my spot formed where it did.

Above ground, upon this depository compilation of history, life scurried around every weekend. When I first examined the animal happenings of my spot, birds, water bugs, and the occasional rodent popped out. I never spent any time at my spot or getting there without hearing the constant communication of birds above me. When numerically recording an element of my spot, they were an obvious choice to examine. The week after I tallied their calls between one another, I noticed small prints left in the mud. Imagining a little sparrow walking down the river bank was a peaceful thought that endeared me more to my river spot. These were the live elements of my spot that made me enjoy returning in the early weeks. Eventually, I began to look, listen, and observe more closely. Small ant paths leading to their hills further back from the river’s edge, bugs climbing up and down vines along the huge, leaning maple, and the huge presence of the tree itself began to grab my attention with more time spent. I began to see the tree’s roots anchored by the mud as obstacles for the ants’ destinations as well as necessary carriers of resources for the tree.

The more I noticed within my spot’s borders, the less I got distracted by what lay outside them. Everything was connected. The roots allowed the tree to grow and create more real estate for the vine bugs and birds to create homes while serving as road bumps for the ants on their missions for food. The water bugs would appear in concordance with the weather and time of day. If it was a nice, sunny day or warm and late at night, they would be buzzing about. If it was raining, I wouldn’t see them. My spot became a system of life as I spent more days in it during different daily circumstances. Later in the semester, I started to notice the foliage that had survived the cold temperatures of an Ohio fall. This was mainly little vine-like plants growing out of or down the huge tree’s trunk. I accepted that they played a part in the system too, they just move more slowly than the ants and the birds! Eventually, I felt I was becoming a part of it. I was the two-footed giant that would visit once a week for twenty or thirty minutes to check-in and watch, not to trample or disturb. Looking at my spot through the lens of study in class, I couldn’t help looking to the ground as the unifying element that connected all parts of the system - river included. The river’s constant movement shaped and created this ground that all these organisms moved across, leaving paths and prints behind them. I am just appreciative to be aware of its history. That awareness makes all nature seem more majestic and wise. It has a story just as a bird or a human does. It is just much, much longer.

Works Cited:

National Geographic Society. “Sediment.” National Geographic Society, 9 Oct. 2012, www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/sediment/.

National Geographic Society. “Floodplain.” National Geographic Society, 9 Oct. 2012, www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/flood-plain/.

Flora and fauna from the system