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Probing the depths of the Big Muddy: What does the bed of the Missouri River look like?

Presentation by Caroline Elliott, geologist with U.S. Geological Survey – River Studies Branch

USGS Geologist Caroline Elliott will share what her pallid sturgeon research has revealed about the hidden world of the bottom of the Missouri River, and share images of this murky and shifting environment.

bedforms

A sonar painting of the bottom of the Missouri River at the mouth of Overton Chute near Rocheport. Courtesy USGS River Studies.

Time and Place

Tuesday, April 25, 2017
7:00 pm

Westport CoffeeHouse Theater
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Presentation by Caroline Elliott, USGS River Studies Branch

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Where – Westport Coffeehouse Theater – 4010 Pennsylvania Ave. Kansas City, MO

6 p.m. – Social Hour
7 p.m. – Presentation. Presentation will be filmed – After 7 PM, Please enter through Green Room Burgers

PLUS – This presentation audio will be streaming live on KCDV.tv!
(See past videos here)

Presentation is FREE and open to the public!

The Big Muddy is deep and mysterious.  One can’t just look down and see what is on the bottom the way you can in a clear Ozark stream.  Scientists from the US Geological Survey at the Columbia Environmental Research Center have developed a variety of tools to see through the murky river and watch what is happening on the bottom.  They use precise measurements to watch and measure the migration of sand dunes and we can see details like rocky outcrops and large trees on the bottom of the river.  Through the use of sonar they image fish like the pallid sturgeon as they swim upstream and even spawn in fast deep areas near the bottom of the river.

USGS Geologist Caroline Elliott will reveal what she’s learned about the hidden world of the bottom of the Missouri River, and share images of this murky and shifting environment.

Caroline’s research is part of the Comprehensive Sturgeon Project. Her team is measuring bedload transport rates and mapping out the parts of the river that are moving and parts of the river channel that are stable.  The research questions for pallid sturgeon recruitment and survival involve determining if the places where pallid sturgeon are currently spawning in the Missouri River are stable enough to support successful incubation of sturgeon embryos.  When pallid sturgeon spawn they release eggs that adhere to rocky substrates in the river and scientists think these eggs require stable substrates for four to eight days before they hatch. Other questions related to bed and sand dune movement involve understanding how sturgeon move upstream through the river during their pre-spawning migrations and how drifting invertebrates many bottom-dwelling fish feed on move along the bed of the river.
The USGS geomorphologists use sonar, specifically a multibeam echosounder and survey-grade GPS to map the bottom of the river.  They use an acoustic Doppler current profiler to map velocity flow fields in the river channel and several types of sonar and underwater cameras to view fish and sediment in the river.  They’ve made measurements at the bottom of the river in many places along the 811 miles of the Lower Missouri River downstream from Gavins Point Dam and on the Yellowstone River, a Missouri River tributary upstream in Montana and North Dakota.
This presentation is part of a two-month long project called “Tributary – An Exploration of the Missouri River, Real and Metaphorical” curated by Minister of Information Don Wilkison and hosted by Charlotte Street Foundation. Find out all the details here.  

Directions

Westport CoffeeHouse – 4010 Pennsylvania Kansas City, Mo – www.westportcoffeehouse.com

The Westport CoffeeHouse is in the Westport entertainment area, midtown KC, south of downtown and north of the Plaza.  The main intersection is Westport Rd and Broadway.  From this intersection, go west on Westport Rd one block to Pennsylvania. Turn north (right).

OR you can get there from the intersection of Southwest Trafficway and Westport Rd.  Go east on Westport Rd to Pennsylvania. Turn north (left).

Westport Coffee House is approximately one block down on the west side of Pennsylvania.  Parking can be had either south of the coffee house in the large parking lot or just north of the coffee house alongside the building.  Enter through Green Room Burgers or Westport CoffeeHouse.

“Tributary” – a collaboration of Art and Science

This presentation is part of a two-month long project called “Tributary – An Exploration of the Missouri River, Real and Metaphorical” curated by Minister of Information Don Wilkison and hosted by Charlotte Street Foundation. Find out all the details here. 

Resources & Links

Dig deeper for more info on this topic.

The Big Muddy Speakers Series in Kansas City

is hosted by these wonderful partners!

Thanks to all of our venue hosts for making this possible! Click here for a list of upcoming presentations» The Big Muddy Speaker Series is also held monthly in Rocheport and St. Charles.

Recordings of Presentations

Kansas City Digital Video has been recording Big Muddy Speaker Series presentations. These are available on their website at this link. Some contain synchronized powerpoint presentations. We will be posting these to the archived presentation pages on bigmuddyspeakers.org. Thanks Micheal Morgan and crew for putting this important archive online!