ORCID Profile
0000-0001-9238-5072
Current Organisation
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
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Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 25-08-2020
Abstract: Abstract. Many mountain ranges survive in a phase of erosional decay for millions of years (Myr) following the cessation of tectonic activity. Landscape dynamics in these post-orogenic settings have long puzzled geologists due to the expectation that topographic relief should decline with time. Our understanding of how denudation rates, crustal dynamics, bedrock erodibility, climate, and mantle-driven processes interact to dictate the persistence of relief in the absence of ongoing tectonics is incomplete. Here we explore how lateral variations in rock type, ranging from resistant quartzites to less-resistant schists and phyllites and up to the least-resistant gneisses and granitic rocks, have affected rates and patterns of denudation and topographic forms in a humid semitropical, high-relief, post-orogenic landscape in Brazil where active tectonics ended hundreds of Myr ago. We show that denudation rates are negatively correlated to topographic relief, channel steepness and modern precipitation rates. Denudation instead correlates with inferred bedrock strength, with resistant rocks denuding more slowly relative to more erodible rock units, and suggest that the efficiency of fluvial erosion varies primarily due to these bedrock differences. Variations in erodibility continue to drive contrasts in rates of denudation in a tectonically inactive landscape evolving for hundreds of Myr, suggesting that equilibrium is not a natural attractor state and that relief continues to grow through time. Over the long timescales of post-orogenic development, exposure at the surface of rock types with differential erodibility can become a dominant control on landscape dynamics by producing spatial variations in geomorphic processes and rates, promoting the survival of relief, and determining spatial differences in erosional response timescales long after cessation of mountain building.
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 09-03-2021
Abstract: Abstract. Many mountain ranges survive in a phase of erosional decay for millions of years following the cessation of tectonic activity. Landscape dynamics in these post-orogenic settings have long puzzled geologists due to the expectation that topographic relief should decline with time. Our understanding of how denudation rates, crustal dynamics, bedrock erodibility, climate, and mantle-driven processes interact to dictate the persistence of relief in the absence of ongoing tectonics is incomplete. Here we explore how lateral variations in rock type, ranging from resistant quartzites to less resistant schists and phyllites, and up to the least resistant gneisses and granitic rocks, have affected rates and patterns of denudation and topographic forms in a humid subtropical, high-relief post-orogenic landscape in Brazil where active tectonics ended hundreds of millions of years ago. We show that catchment-averaged denudation rates are negatively correlated with mean values of topographic relief, channel steepness and modern precipitation rates. Denudation instead correlates with inferred bedrock strength, with resistant rocks denuding more slowly relative to more erodible rock units, and the efficiency of fluvial erosion varies primarily due to these bedrock differences. Variations in erodibility continue to drive contrasts in rates of denudation in a tectonically inactive landscape evolving for hundreds of millions of years, suggesting that equilibrium is not a natural attractor state and that relief continues to grow through time. Over the long timescales of post-orogenic development, exposure at the surface of rock types with differential erodibility can become a dominant control on landscape dynamics by producing spatial variations in geomorphic processes and rates, promoting the survival of relief and determining spatial differences in erosional response timescales long after cessation of mountain building.
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 25-08-2020
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
No related grants have been discovered for Daniel Peifer.