Noah P. Snyder
Assistant Professor
Department of Geology & Geophysics
Boston College
140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

CV (pdf)

Research

Rivers are conduits for transport of fresh water, sediment and nutrients throughout the landscape. At the same time, rivers are vital pathways for the migration of aquatic species, such as salmon. My research focuses on understanding how rivers respond to perturbations, ranging from long-term changes in tectonics or climate to short-term changes in management style or land use. In addition to field measurements and mapping of stream morphology, tools used for my research include numerical modeling, and analysis of digital elevation data and remote-sensing imagery using state-of-the-art computer hardware and software. I am currently working in three specific research directions.

1. Controls on the morphology of rivers in response to deglaciation and land-use change

Field surveys in the Narraguagus River watershed (August 2008) and Sheepscot River (December 2006), Maine.

My research program on rivers in New England is up and running. Since I arrived at BC in 2004, I have been meeting with other scientists (geologists, ecologists, and biologists), environmental engineers, and resource managers to learn about research needs and opportunities in this region. I am interested in contributing to our understanding of the interrelated issues associated with Atlantic salmon habitat requirements, river restoration, and dam removal in northern New England. I also seek to improve our understanding of how rivers are evolving in response to the deglaciation that occurred ten to fifteen thousand years ago. Rivers and river restoration has been studied by geomorphologists in other (mostly unglaciated) parts of the world to a much greater extent that the those of New England, so this work has the potential to yield fundamental insights to our knowledge of stream processes. For this research, my students and I use methods including field measurements of stream processes, repeat surveys of bedload transport using marked particles, analysis of remote-sensing data, studies of geomorphic and sedimentary records of landscape change, process-based numerical modeling, and collection of new airborne laser altimetry data. In 2006, this work was funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Maine Atlantic Salmon Conservation Fund. In the summer of 2007, I started a project funded by the National Science Foundation Geomorphology and Land Use Dynamics program.

I am also studying sediment dynamics associated with the removal of the Merrimack Village Dam on the Souhegan River in southern New Hampshire. This work is funded by the NOAA Open Rivers Initiative. In 2008, I received funding from the American Chemical Society to study New England reservoir deltas as analogues for offshore sedimentary systems.

I am a member of the Penobscot River Science Steering Committee.

Removal of the Merrimack Village Dam (left) and expsoure of impounded sediment (right, photo by Matt Collins) on August 6, 2008, Souhegan River, New Hampshire.

Publications: New England rivers

Snyder, N.P., Castele, M.R.*, and Wright, J.R., 2008, Bedload entrainment in low-gradient paraglacial coastal rivers of Maine, U.S.A.: Implications for habitat restoration, Geomorphology, doi: 10.1016/j.geomorph.2008.07.013. PDF

Kasprak, A.*, 2008, Measuring sedimentation rates and land-use change in a dam-influenced lake delta: Narraguagus River, Maine, B.S. Thesis, Department of Geology and Geophysics, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, 122 p.

Castele, M.R.*, 2007, Modeling sediment transport and quantifying channel morphology of the Sheepscot River, coastal Maine, M.S. Thesis, Department of Geology and Geophysics, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, 173 p.

Gryga, M.E.*, 2006, Controls on water temperature in the Sheepscot River, Maine, B.S. Honors Thesis, Department of Geology and Geophysics, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, 48 p.

(*BC student co-authors.)

2. Transient response of a desert river to forced diversion: Furnace Creek Wash, Death Valley National Park, California

This project seeks to better quantify erosion rates of bedrock by rivers in tectonically active areas using an unusual large-scale experiment caused by the forced diversion of Furnace Creek Wash into much steeper and smaller Gower Gulch in 1941. The project started as Lisa Schultz's Masters Thesis at BC, and continued with the collection of airborne laser swath mapping data in 2005 as part of a proposal funded by the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping.

Airborne laser swath mapping slope (colors, red = steep) and shaded-relief (grayscale) image of the diversion (arrow), Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park, California.

Publications: Death Valley area

Snyder, N.P., and Kammer, L.L.*, 2008, Dynamic adjustments in channel width in response to a forced diversion: Gower Gulch, Death Valley National Park, California, Geology, v. 25, doi: 10.1130/G24217A.1, p. 187-190. WEB

Schultz, L.L.*, 2005, Investigation of the transient response of Gower Gulch to forced diversion, Death Valley, California, M.S. Thesis, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, 57 p.

Snyder, N.P., and Hodges, K.V., 2000, Depositional and tectonic evolution of a supradetachment basin: 40Ar/ 39Ar geochronology of the Nova Formation, Panamint Range, California, Basin Research, v. 12, n. 1, p. 19-30. PDF

(*BC student co-authors.)

3. Sediment transport and reservoir sedimentation in the Yuba River watershed in northern California

The Upper Yuba River Studies Program is a multidisciplinary investigation of the feasibility of introducing wild anadromous fish species to the watershed upstream of Englebright Dam. My participation in the UYRSP (funded by the California Bay-Delta Authority and its Science Fellows Program) began while I was a postdoctoral researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey Coastal and Marine Geology Team in Santa Cruz, California. My work on the project concerns linking reservoir sedimentation with watershed hydrology, understanding reservoir depositional processes, and using short-lived isotopes (7Be, 137Cs and 210Pb) to constrain reservoir sedimentation history.

Publications: Yuba River

Snyder, N.P., Wright, S.A., Alpers, C.N., Flint, L.E., Holmes, C.W., and Rubin, D.M, 2006, Reconstructing depositional processes and history from reservoir stratigraphy: Englebright Lake, Yuba River, northern California, Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 111, F04003, doi:10.1029/2005JF000451. PDF

Alpers, C.N., Hunerlach, M.P., Marvin-DiPasquale, M.C., Antweiler, R.C., Lasorsa, B.K., De Wild, J.F., and Snyder, N.P., 2006, Geochemical data for mercury, methylmercury, and other constituents in sediments from Englebright Lake, California, 2002, U.S Geological Survey Data-Series Report 2005-151, http://pubs.water.usgs.gov/ds151/, 95 p.

Curtis, J.A., Flint, L.E., Alpers, C.N., Wright, S.A., and Snyder, N.P., 2006, Use of Sediment Rating Curves and Optical Backscatter Data to Characterize Sediment Transport in the Upper Yuba River Watershed, California, 2001–03, U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2005-5246, http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2005/5246/, 74 p.

Snyder, N.P., Rubin, D.M., Alpers, C.N., Childs, J.R., Curtis, J.A., Flint, L.E., and Wright, S.A., 2004, Estimating rates and properties of sediment accumulation behind a dam: Englebright Lake, Yuba River, northern California, Water Resources Research, v. 40, W11301, doi:10.1029/2004WR003279. PDF

Snyder, N.P. , Allen, J.R., Dare, C., Hampton, M.A., Schneider, G., Wooley, R.J., Alpers, C.N., and Marvin-DiPasquale M.C., 2004, Sediment grain-size and loss-on-ignition analyses from 2002 Englebright Lake coring and sampling campaigns, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2004-1080, http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2004/1080/, 46 p.

Snyder, N.P. , Alpers, C.N., Flint, L.E., Curtis, J.A., Hampton, M.A., Haskell, B.J., and Nielson, D.L., 2004, Report on the May-June 2002 Englebright Lake deep coring campaign, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2004-1061, http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2004/1061/, 32 p., 10 plates.

Snyder, N.P. , and Hampton, M.A., 2003, Preliminary cross section of Englebright Lake sediments, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 03-397, http://geopubs.wr.usgs.gov/open-file/of03-397/, 1 plate.

Childs, J.R., Snyder, N.P., Hampton, M.A., 2003, Bathymetric and geophysical surveys of Englebright Lake, Yuba-Nevada Counties, California, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 03-383, http://geopubs.wr.usgs.gov/open-file/of03-383/, 20 p.

Other and previous research

Publications: Channel response to tectonics, bedrock erosion processes, digital elevation model analysis

Wobus, C.W., Whipple, K.X, Kirby, E., Snyder, N.P., Johnson, J., Spyropolou, K., Crosby, B., and Sheehan, D., 2006, Tectonics from topography: Procedures, promise, and pitfalls, in Willett, S.D., Hovius, N., Brandon, M.T., and Fisher, D.M., editors, Tectonics, Climate, and Landscape Evolution, Geological Society of America Special Paper 398, p. 55-74, doi: 10.1130/2006.2398(04). PDF

Snyder, N.P., Whipple, K.X., Tucker, G.E., and Merritts, D.J., 2003, Importance of a stochastic distribution of floods and erosion thresholds in the bedrock river incision problem, Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 108 (B2), 2117, doi: 10.1029/2001JB001655. PDF and correction

Snyder, N.P., Whipple, K.X., Tucker, G.E., and Merritts, D.J., 2003, Channel response to tectonic forcing: analysis of stream morphology and hydrology in the Mendocino triple junction region, northern California, Geomorphology, v. 53, p. 97-127. PDF

Snyder, N.P., Whipple, K.X., Tucker, G.E., and Merritts, D.J, 2002, Interactions between onshore bedrock-channel incision and nearshore wave-base erosion forced by eustasy and tectonics, Basin Research, v. 14, p. 105-127. PDF

Snyder, N.P., Whipple, K.X., Tucker, G.E., and Merritts, D.J, 2000, Landscape response to tectonic forcing: digital elevation model analysis of stream profiles in the Mendocino triple junction region, northern California, Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 112, n. 8, p. 1250-1263. PDF

Whipple, K.X., Snyder, N.P., and Dollenmayer, K., 2000, Rates and processes of bedrock incision by the Upper Ukak River since the 1912 Novarupta ash flow in the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, Alaska, Geology, v. 28, n. 9, p. 835-838. PDF

Teaching: courses

GE 132, Exploring the Earth I

GE 170, Rivers and the Environment

GE 400, Watershed Geomorphology

GE 490, Remote Sensing and Image Interpretation

GE 580, Environmental Seminar

GE 692, Earth System Seminar

GE 794, Seminar in Geology

GE400 class fieldtrip on Mount Monadnock, New Hampshire (November 2007).

© Noah P. Snyder,  revised 24 September 2008.